Excido
by shiny silver grl
Summary: Hermione's poisoned by one of Hagrid’s Magical Creatures & Ron's left with the task of keeping her awake while they await help, or else she'll die. In doing so, he learns that his feelings for her are not as one-sided as he's always believed. COMPLETE.
1. Title Page

**Title****: "**Excido"

**Interpretation:** "Excido": To pass from memory or thought, be forgotten.

**Author****:** silver

**Summary****: **Hermione is poisoned by the bite of one of Hagrid's Magical Creatures; if she falls asleep, she'll die. When Harry leaves them alone in the forest to fetch help, Ron is left with the task of keeping her awake. In doing so, he learns that his feelings for her aren't as one-sided as he's always thought.

**Rating****:** PG-13, for language and minor allusions to adult themes.

**Written****: **May 14th, 2004 – May 30th, 2004

**Disclaimer****: **Nope, they're still not mine. In fact, I really wish they'd just go away and leave me alone!

**Author's Note****: **So…here is my THIRD Harry Potter story. I wish these ideas would quit plaguing me, so I could concentrate on my Angel-fic. I mean really, how many different ways can I make Ron and Hermione confess their feelings for each other, anyway?

Anyhoo…enjoy. Much as I complain, I'm kind of enjoying it, myself. They can just be so cute together, can't they? ;) And if they act a little more mature in my fics than in the books, please just remember that they take place in 7th year, when they're all 17.


	2. Bitten

__

I was bored, Ron Weasley thought to himself as Hermione lay dying in his arms.

__

That's how all this got started. I told Hermione I was bored, and she said she'd been just about to go visit Hagrid, and would Harry and I like to come?

Numb with fear, Ron could scarcely reconcile his easy memory of this morning with the horror of now. This morning seemed impossibly safe and warm and too far away from this moment to be real.

……….

He **had** been warm then. Warm and cozy in the Gryffindor Common Room, having just executed another stunning victory at Wizard's Chess. Harry had been a trifle less thrilled by the outcome of the game, and was sitting back in his customary armchair, brooding. His third defeat in a row had him declining another game, and Ron looked about for something else to do. He was a bit hungry, but since they'd just come back from breakfast an hour ago, he figured he'd have little luck in convincing his friends to go down with him for a snack.

It was a Saturday morning, and the common room was uncommonly quiet, as many of the students were still away for the holidays. Since it was their last year at Hogwarts together, Harry, Hermione and Ron had decided to stay and make the most of it. Unfortunately, "the most of it" seemed to be over and done with. Christmas and New Year's had come and gone, Voldemort was history, and all that remained was to finish up this year. Ron and Harry tended to look at it as if their adventures were over, and were rather depressed about the whole thing.

To Hermione, of course, this was the absolute most crucial period of their school careers. Their N.E.W.T. examinations were fast approaching, and Hermione viewed them as the pinnacle of everything they'd worked for all this time. She mercilessly drove Ron and Harry to study harder and longer than they ever had before. After Ron melodramatically pleaded with her to please, for the love of all that was good and right in the world, **please** give them a break from the nagging, she'd left them alone about it over the break. She had, however, seen their slacking off as no reason to fall behind herself. Even now she was curled up on the couch with a book.

Since she was engrossed in what she was reading and not paying attention to him, Ron allowed himself to watch her for a moment. When she absently reached up to curl a stray lock of hair around her ear, his stomach rolled over in its by-now familiar flip. Ron had to catch his breath. It absolutely amazed him that in the three years since he'd realized how he felt about her, he still reacted that way just from looking at her. He wondered – not for the first time, or for the last, he was sure – what it would feel like if she actually knew. If she felt the same way. Based upon his reaction to such a minor stimulus as watching her tuck some hair behind her ear, he figured if – in some bizarre, alternate universe – they ever kissed, he might very well twist inside out all together.

__

So it's probably for the best that she doesn't know how I feel, he reassured himself. _I can barely function around her as it is…much less without trying to do it turned inside out._

He hadn't realized he was still watching her until he heard a small, pointed cough from the armchair across from him. Ron glanced over, startled, and then went red when he remembered that Harry was still there. Oi, what was wrong with him, getting lost in watching Hermione when Harry was sitting **right there** watching _him_?

Ron straightened, his head snapping around to look somewhere else – anywhere else! His gaze landed on the clock above the mantle, and he stared at it with single-minded intensity, as if at any moment it might do something amazing, and by blinking he'd risk missing it. At just that moment, the clock struck twelve, its tones sounding vaguely apologetic, as if sorry for being less than worthy of such focused attention.

Harry arched an eyebrow, grinning wickedly. He and Ron had never talked about it, but he was perfectly aware of how his friend felt about Hermione, and he did so enjoy tormenting him about it. He considered it his responsibility as a friend to do so, until such a time as Ron wised up and just told her, already. Also, it was a fitting revenge for the beating he'd taken on the chessboard.

The abrupt sound had caught Hermione's attention too, however, and she looked up from her book to glance at him curiously. Harry immediately choked on his cough, and it was several moments before he'd regained his composure. When he was back under control, he innocently returned Hermione's gaze. She rolled her eyes, and he pretended not to notice. "So what're you reading, Hermione?" Harry asked.

Sensing that he was safe for the moment, Ron immediately abandoned his scrutiny of the clock and joined the conversation. "Something for school, no doubt."

"As a matter of fact," Hermione said primly, not looking up from the text, "it's a book about one of the animals Hagrid's going to introduce once school starts up again. I asked him what he'd be teaching us, and he lent me this book so I could get a head start."

Hagrid, of course, had been a personal friend of the trio since their first year, and this was the fifth year that he'd been Professor of the "Care of Magical Creatures" course at Hogwarts.

Knowing Hagrid's predilection for picking the most dangerous creatures imaginable, Harry cringed in anticipation. "And what's this one do, turn you to stone with a glance?"

"That's Medusa," Hermione said automatically. "Greek mythology, Harry. Really, you should know better."

"Oh, I've got it," Ron chimed in. "It's got a corrosive acid for vomit, and the only way to keep it from tossing on you is to stand on one leg and cross your eyes."

Hermione fixed him with a steely glare. "I can only assume that you're making fun of the way you have to approach a Hippogriff. And honestly, Ron, I should think that you'd be a little more open-minded after the way Buckbeak helped us."

By this point, she had really hit her stride, and was making no attempt to pretend she was still reading. "He really came through when we needed him…and who knows? There may come a time when what we've learned about the Lotus Lepus saves our lives, too!"

Ron and Harry nearly fell out of their chairs laughing. "The whoosits whatsis?" Ron asked, holding his sides.

"The Lotus Lepus," Hermione repeated crossly. "And if either of you ever bothered to research anything, you'd know that it's a form of hare, indigenous to the northern coast of Africa. Its name is based in part on the story of the Lotus Eaters - "

"A hare?" Ron interrupted. "What, like a rabbit?" He exchanged a mirthful look with Harry. "Has Hagrid run completely out of dangerous animals?"

"Hoo-rah," Harry said, in a tone that sounded quite a bit like 'It's about time'.

"It's more dangerous than you might think," Hermione said, flipping pages in her book until she reached the one she was searching for. She held the open book out to them as evidence. "Its bite releases a slow acting - "

Harry waved her off. "Hermione, I'm sorry. But after nearly seven years of school, fighting and defeating Voldemort, and with the N.E.W.T.s coming up, I just can't take any more. I don't want to learn anything about the Lotsa Lupsus rabbit."

"Lotus Lepus," Hermione enunciated, correcting him absently. She was more concerned about his lack of interest. "How can you not want to learn about it? It's a fascinating creature, really. And what else are you doing, anyway?" she wanted to know.

Harry didn't have an answer. "She's right about that," Ron agreed. "I'm bored out of my bloody skull."

Ron paused expectantly, as if waiting for something. When no one said anything, he looked at Hermione in surprise. "Aren't you going to tell me not to curse?"

Hermione had stood, and was now stuffing the book into her school bag. Without turning around, she said, "I've been telling you not to curse for seven years, Ron. If you haven't stopped by now, you're never going to, and it would be pointless for me to persist."

Ron looked dumbfounded, as if his entire world had just been turned upside down. "So you're just going to give up?"

Now Hermione faced him, her brows furrowed as she tried to understand him. "Do you **want** me to nag you?"

"Well…no," Ron said. The truth was, he **did** always accuse her of nagging. But after seven years, it was more of a habit, really. He'd curse, she'd tell him not to, and then he'd poke her about nagging him. It was the same with the studying issue. Each provided a platform from which they usually launched into some sort of argument, but their disagreements lacked the vitriol they'd once had. It was hard to be angry with a girl when all you could really think about was how much you wanted to kiss her. He'd long ago realized that his tendency to provoke her into a row was a stand-in for what he really wanted. If he couldn't tell her how he truly felt – and he really couldn't…Merlin knew he'd tried to muster up the courage often enough – arguing would have to be an acceptable substitute. He knew it was childish, but at least when they were having it out he knew he had her attention; she was focused on him. Her flat refusal to rise to his baiting now was therefore a bit of a shock, and felt a little like she was abandoning him. Not liking that feeling -not at all - he changed the subject. "Where are you going, anyway?"

Hermione brushed stray bangs out of her eyes. "Well, since neither of you are going to read it, I thought I'd visit Hagrid and return his book. Would you like to come?"

"Yes," Harry answered immediately. Right now, anything would have sounded better than getting trounced at another game of chess.

Ron was all for the idea, too (he ignored the little voice inside his head that insisted he only wanted to go because Hermione was going), and after dressing in their warmest robes, cloaks, hats and scarves, the three of them headed out of the castle.

They'd gotten a good snow over the holidays, and the weather had been consistently cold enough so that none of the white stuff had melted. As the trio trudged across the icy slope toward Hagrid's hut, they attempted to match the placement of their feet into the deep depressions left by their last trek, on Christmas day. They'd gone that afternoon to visit and exchange presents with Hagrid, and the path of their journey to and from his hut was still clearly visible. Stepping into the same prints was marginally easier than breaking through the upper crust of snow, which was several days old, and hardened by freezing wind.

A few times Hermione had difficulty because of her shorter legs, and Ron would reach out a hand to steady her. Each time he took her arm, or placed his hand at the small of her back to balance her, she'd turn her head and smile a thank you at him, resulting in another flip from his stomach.

At the end of the brisk, five-minute walk, they arrived at Hagrid's door. As Harry stepped forward, Ron couldn't help but notice Hermione in his peripheral vision. Her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold, and her hair was wild where it sprang out from beneath her cap. She was breathing a bit hard from fighting her way through the snow, and her eyes were twinkling. Though the trip hadn't been as physically demanding for him, Ron found himself breathing a little harder than usual, too. He shook his head, and looked away.

Harry knocked, and they heard Fang bark in response from within. A moment later the heavy oak swung inward and Hagrid loomed in the doorway. As usual, he had to peer down at them. "Oh, hello there, Harry. Ron; Hermione. Come in out of the cold."

He stood back to let them pass, and then shut the door behind them as they all started removing scarves and gloves. "I was just headin' out, actually, but it can wait a few. What can I do for ya'?"

Hermione started to reach for her school bag. "I've finished the book…thank you for letting me borrow it. And while I was down here, I was wondering if I could see the Lotus Lepus, but since you're going out…"

Hagrid grunted. "Funny you should mention it," he said, sounding a bit aggravated. "The little bugger escaped from his pen sometime last night, and 'e's what I was going out to find."

"Oh," Hermione replied, her eyes wide. "The poor thing, out all night in this weather!"

Ron and Harry shared another look. How well they knew her! Tales of any creature in distress – real or perceived - were bound to bring out her maternal side. Predictable as the sunrise, Hermione was the champion of innumerable lost causes (including fourth year's doomed venture, S.P.E.W.: the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare), and convincing her that something **didn't** need saving was near impossible.

"There now, Hermione," Hagrid tried anyway. "Don't fret. The Lotus Lepus has an abundance of two things: fur and teeth. 'E'll be all right. But I need to find him before classes start up again."

"We could help you, Hagrid," Harry volunteered. When Ron looked at him in surprise, Harry defended himself. "What? Hermione's the only one who can care about a fluffy bunny rabbit out all alone in the forest in the middle of winter?"

"Besides," he finally said, when Ron continued to look disbelieving, "what else have we got to do?"

"Is losing another game of chess really so horrible that you'd rather tramp around in the snow all day in the woods, looking for a rabbit?" Ron wanted to know.

"It is, if it's for the fourth time today," Harry said.

Hagrid appeared indecisive. "I appreciate you volunteerin', and all, but I don't know if you should really come in contact with the Lotus Lepus before getting' ta' learn about it in class."

"Don't worry, Hagrid," Harry reassured him. "Hermione knows all about it. We'll just make sure to stick together and be careful."

"Well," Hagrid said, glancing out the window. The position of the sun indicated that it was already after mid-day, and if he wanted to find the Lotus Lepus before nightfall, he should get started. "All right," he finally said. "I appreciate yer' help. We'll cover more ground if we split up. Me an' Fang'll take the Northern section of the forest. You three can take the South. If yer get inta' any trouble, just come back here straight away."

Their plan decided upon, Hagrid loaded the students up with food and supplies before taking off. With a few last words of advice – "Now remember, don't get too close, and stay away from its teeth!" – Hagrid and Fang set out for the Northern section of the forest, leaving Harry, Hermione and Ron to head for the Southern half.

They hadn't been walking for very long, when something suddenly occurred to Ron. "Hey, how are we supposed to find this one particular rabbit, in a forest full of rabbits, anyway?"

Hermione sighed. "I've only been walking around with my wand in front of me for a quarter of an hour, Ron," she said. "Didn't you wonder if I might be doing a seek charm?"

"Oh," Ron said, feeling stupid.

"Plus, it should be the only purple hare you see," she added.

Harry chuckled, and Hermione shook her head, resigned. "What are you two going to do without me?"

Ron frowned. "What do you mean?"

Hermione paused, looking at him. "Well…I mean, this is our last year. We'll graduate from Hogwarts in six months or so, and then you and Harry will be going on to Auror training, right?"

Harry nodded, and Hermione went on. "And well, I don't know yet what I'll be doing, exactly, but it probably won't be Auror training, so…"

She trailed off, and Ron felt a little ill.

Harry caught his stricken look. Not without sympathy, he said, "Come on, Ron. We all knew it would happen."

And he **had** known, intellectually, that some day the trio would have to split up to pursue their adult careers, but it had always seemed so far away. It was always something that was going to happen "some day", in a comfortably fuzzy future. Now, it was this year. It was in six months. Life as he had known it for the past seven years would end, and they'd lose Hermione.

He knew they'd keep in touch, of course. Communication was only an owl or an apparation away, but it wouldn't be the same. They wouldn't wake up and go to breakfast with her every day. When they played Quidditch, she wouldn't be down in the stands cheering them on, bundled up in her warm, red and gold colored scarf. She wouldn't be in classes with them, taking notes that she would reluctantly let them read later, pretending that she was annoyed, but really sort of obviously enjoying taking care of them. She wouldn't sit with them in the evenings before bed, curled up on the sofa with a book, glancing up occasionally as if to keep an eye on them, watching them as they played chess. She wouldn't be there at night, in the next dormitory, as Ron lay awake in his bed thinking about her.

Abruptly aware that he hadn't answered Harry, Ron snapped out of his self-pitying daze. "I know," he said, "I just…forgot that it would be so soon."

His tone was so…forlorn…that it drew Hermione's attention, and she glanced at him. He was walking with them, hands in his pockets, but he wasn't really paying attention to anything around him. Obviously lost in unhappy thought, his head was down and his shoulders were slumped. She could empathize, as she wasn't really looking as forward to graduation as she thought she'd be, either. Like Ron, she'd known the day would come when her boys would leave her, but she found that she couldn't welcome it.

Hoping to brighten his spirits, Hermione laid a hand on Ron's forearm. "Hey," she said, "You know the three of us will always be friends, right?" When he raised his head to look at her, she went on. "You and Harry are too important to me to let slip away." She included Harry in the conversation, feeling a little sappy, but needing to say it. "No one could ever replace you two."

Harry smiled at her sentimental words, and then took her by surprise with a hug. "You know we feel the same way, 'Mione," he said, adopting the pet name Ron had created for her years ago.

Hermione squeezed back, lightly, and looked over at Ron. His troubled blue eyes had cleared a little, and when she smiled at him, he returned it. The smile was genuine, but there was more going on behind his expression than he let on.

Six months, he realized. That's all the much longer he had, if he was ever going to tell her how he felt. After that, it would be too late. He didn't quite dare to hope that she might feel the same way, but the approaching deadline told him something he hadn't known before: he **had** to tell her. If he let the six months come and go without saying anything, he'd regret it for the rest of his life. He'd always wonder what might have been. And knowing that she'd definitely walk out of his life in six months if he **didn't** say anything, well…that made it that much easier to tell her.

Theoretically, anyway.

Ron smiled back at her, and then fell in step again when she and Harry resumed their search for Hagrid's hare. He had much to think about.

……….

Ron wasn't sure how much later it was, when Hermione's wand started to glow. He knew that they'd stopped to eat twice, but admitted to himself that the second time was pretty much just for him.

Hermione and he had developed another little ritual over the past couple years, where at mealtimes she would observe the massive amounts of food he ate and ask him where he put it all, or if he just cast a spell that made the food magically disappear once it reached his stomach, so he could keep eating for the pleasure of it. He would reply that he was a growing boy and he needed his nutrition. In the absence of her cursing rebuke earlier, the mealtime ritual had him feeling better again.

In any case, the sun was definitely lower in the sky than it had been when they started out, so Ron knew they'd been walking for a couple hours. Strangely, though, he hadn't gotten tired or cold enough to propose going back. He was still enjoying himself. Maybe part of it was knowing that times like this – with just the three of them – were limited. It was just him and his two best friends, laughing and talking and hanging out together. Before too long they wouldn't be able to do this any more, so he was reluctant to call an end to the day.

So they were all three a little startled when Hermione's wand started to glow lavender. They'd been having such a good time that the main purpose for their adventure had sort of slid to the back of their minds.

Now, Hermione excitedly looked around the clearing they'd walked into, her eyes darting to the shadows under all of the shrubs and low foliage. "Look! It must be here somewhere!"

Harry crouched, quickly opening the collapsible cage that Hagrid had given them for this very purpose.

Ron pulled out his own wand, prepared to levitate the first purple rabbit he saw into the cage.

"Now remember," Hermione said in her familiar, _'I know what I'm talking about, so listen to me'_ voice. "The Lotus Lepus is aggressive, and **will** try to bite you. So stay as far away as possible."

"What happens if you get bitten?" Ron wanted to know, worried enough to ask now, remembering that he couldn't have cared less earlier, when Hermione had been volunteering the information.

She stepped forward, peering into the underbrush as she started to answer. "Well, it's kind of like a curse -"

"There it is!" Harry shouted, spotting a flash of purple in the shade of an old elm tree. Ignoring Hermione's warning, he leapt forward to give chase. The Lotus Lepus, like any hare, had been sitting under the tree as still as a statue; only its ears had twitched a little, swiveling toward the sound of the three humans as they entered the clearing. Once Harry made a move toward it, the Lotus Lepus bolted, zig zagging all across the clearing in an effort to avoid being caught.

Like a couple of hounds, loving the excuse to run full out, Harry and Ron gave chase with a whoop. As Hermione watched them race pell mell away from her, she planted her hands on her hips and sighed. "They really don't listen to a word I say, do they?" she said to herself.

Unfortunately, the situation was a little more serious than they were taking it, and if anyone was going to act like an adult here, it would have to be her. She was, after all, the only one who knew what sort of creature they were up against, and worry for the boys quickly propelled her after them.

By the time she reached the spot where they'd disappeared into the woods, quarry and pursuers had looped around and were headed back into the clearing. Several meters in front of Harry, the Lotus Lepus was looking pretty lively as it bounded around rocks, and over clumps of grass as it headed right toward her. At the last moment, just as Hermione was about to use her wand to levitate the hare, it spotted her and doubled back on its own track, headed right for Harry.

"Harry, look out!" Hermione shouted, remembering the aggressive tendencies of the Lotus Lepus when cornered.

Sure enough, after the hare had doubled back it realized it was caught between two pursuers, and immediately switched from flight to fight. Utilizing the strong muscles in its hindquarters, the Lotus Lepus executed an amazing leap…right at Harry's face.

The young wizard was startled, to say the least. If Hermione hadn't known just how dangerous the magical creature was, she might've been tempted to laugh at the expression on Harry's face. As it was, she **did** know, and the knowledge spurred her to run faster, calling out his name, warning him not to let it bite him.

Harry – for his part – wasn't **trying** to let it bite him, but the bloody thing had gotten its claws stuck in his collar, and it was scabbling at his neck, attempting to get away. Harry started to raise his hands to pull it off him, but then Hermione was there, telling him to put them down or it would bite him. Trusting her, Harry dropped his hands.

Unfortunately, Hermione couldn't use her wand on the animal without hitting Harry, too. But there was no time to find an alternate solution; it could bite Harry at any time. As Ron came skidding up, Hermione grabbed the skin and fur at the base of the hare's skull and scruffed it, much like mother cats and dogs do to their offspring when carrying them about. There was plenty of skin there, and Hermione knew she wasn't hurting the creature, but it shrieked like a banshee once she had a hold on it. Quickly, before it could do any damage to Harry, Hermione pulled it sharply away from him and turned toward the cage.

As she approached it, Harry and Ron dropped to either side of the cage, holding it steady and the door open. The Lotus Lepus squirmed and writhed in her hand like a psychotic worm on a hook.

Falling to her knees before the cage, Hermione shoved the hare inside, having to use her other hand to shove at its rear end when it planted its feet and tried to resist. It wasn't until she had taken her hands away to shut the door to the cage that she felt it…a sharp pain on the back of her left hand. Still in "fight" mode, the hare had immediately turned around once in the cage, and bitten what it perceived to be its attacker.

Numbly, Hermione sat back on her heels, holding her left arm out before her and staring at the bite wound on her hand. It didn't look serious; two red puncture wounds showed vividly against her pale skin, but there was only a small spot of blood from each tiny hole.

Of course there was hardly any blood, she realized slowly through the haze of disbelief. The bite of the Lotus Lepus was designed not to bleed…instead, its poison was carried around in the bloodstream until it reached the brain. Right now it was rushing through her veins, killing her a little with each heartbeat.

Feeling as if she weren't really here, and this hadn't really just happened, Hermione slowly stood. Harry and Ron had managed to get the cage door shut, and were excitedly talking about the chase, which had only lasted thirty seconds or so. Nothing they said made sense to her…she couldn't hear anything, suddenly, except the sound of her own pulse. She was standing here dying, Harry and Ron didn't know, and she couldn't believe it.

Finally, she heard her name. Harry was saying something about how she'd grabbed the Lotus Lepus off of him. He couldn't believe how decisively she'd acted to save him. He was thanking her. Now he was looking at her oddly, because she must look strange standing there holding her arm with her other hand, saying nothing, eyes glazed.

Harry and Ron exchanged a worried glance, and they both approached Hermione. Something was wrong, here. "Hermione?" Harry asked, noting her ashen pallor, and the look of detachment on her face. "Hermione, what is it?"

She blinked, slowly, and finally seemed to see him. She looked down at her arm again, and Harry and Ron followed her gaze. They both saw the bite wound on her left hand. Belatedly, apprehension gripped them as all traces of levity dropped away immediately. Ron grabbed Hermione by the shoulders, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "What does it mean?" he asked her urgently. "What happens when it bites you?"

"What happens?" Hermione repeated dumbly. She looked down at the bite on her hand again, which she still held away from her body as if that would save her. She blinked again. "It's a poison," she said finally. "The bite of the Lotus Lepus is fatal."

.


	3. In The Clearing

Hermione's statement was met with a stunned, horrified silence.

Ron grappled with the sudden shift in everything he knew. Just a moment ago everything had been fine. They'd been laughing and having a grand time, and Hermione was safe there, with them. Now everything had changed. Now the situation was deadly serious. Now Hermione was…dying? The killing blow had been struck while he was right beside her, and he'd done nothing to prevent it. He hadn't stopped it; he hadn't protected her. He couldn't comprehend how this had happened so quickly. He couldn't get his mind around the difference between a few minutes ago, when his biggest problem was that he had six months to try and figure out how to tell Hermione he was in love with her, and now, when Hermione had no future at all.

He felt the same sense of disbelief that had hold of Hermione, but he shook his head, fighting it off. There was no time to be stunned, no time to come to grips with what had happened, or his own sudden, overwhelming feelings of guilt and loss. Hermione needed help, and she wasn't going to get it if Ron and Harry stood around scratching their heads and gaping at each other.

"A poison," he managed. "You said it's a poison. Is there a cure? A…a what-do-you-call-it, a - "

"An antidote," Harry interjected urgently, coming out of his own haze.

Hermione seemed to wake up a little at the questioning, as she was forced to think to come up with an answer. "Yes," she said finally, exhaling as she realized that it might still be all right. "Yes, there's an antidote. Several, actually. I remember reading about them in the book Hagrid lent me. The Hogwarts Infirmary should stock at least one of them."

Ron felt the vise around his chest loosen a bit, and both of his friends seemed to feel the same. Tentative relief kicked them back into action, reanimating them after the sudden stillness of their shock.

"All right," Harry said, taking charge. "Ron, get the rabbit. We'll apparate directly to the Infirmary. Madame Pomfrey will know what to do."

As Ron leaped to grab the cage, Hermione shook her head slowly. When she spoke, her words were uncommonly sluggish, as if she had to pick and choose them. "How many times must I tell you…you can't apparate - "

"…into, or out of Hogwarts," Harry finished with her, suddenly remembering her most common quote from '_Hogwarts: a History'_. "Damn it!" he said, frustration welling up inside him.

Ron could sympathize. He'd forgotten, too. Remembering now did them no good, however, not when all they wanted to do was get Hermione back to the school as quickly as possible. Still, getting frustrated wasn't going to get her there any faster. "It's all right," he said, returning to Hermione's side and taking an arm to support her. "We'll just apparate to Hagrid's, dump the rabbit, and take her to the school."

Harry nodded tersely, and took hold of Hermione's other arm. She stood between the two boys, blinking furiously as if trying to keep her eyes open.

A moment passed. Then another. By the time another moment had slipped into the past, it was several moments too long. "What's going on?" Ron demanded.

"I don't know," Harry said, dropping Hermione's arm. "We're not apparating."

"You're not still aiming for the school, are you?" Ron asked.

"Of course not!" Harry said angrily. "Why isn't it working?"

Ron didn't know, and he was distracted from answering by Hermione, who was leaning more and more heavily on him, as if she had no strength of her own. Tendrils of fear snaked up and wrapped themselves around his heart. "Hermione?" he asked.

Hermione's head was drooping; with obvious effort she lifted it and met his troubled gaze. "It's the poison," she explained. "It's slow acting, but I can already feel it."

"What does it do?" Harry asked. He also tried to work through the fog of guilt and fear, and figure a way out of this. He had to know what they were up against.

Hermione yawned, causing Ron and Harry to look at each other in confusion. On the end of it she rested her head on Ron's shoulder, as if it were too heavy to hold up on her own, and said, "It's carried around the body through the bloodstream, and effects certain areas of the brain associated with sleep. It waits there until the body wears itself down, and then kills the person infected when they can no longer keep up their defenses." The juxtaposition between her apparent boredom and the terrifying picture her words painted was chilling, and Ron felt sick again. He couldn't believe this was happening.

"How long?" he asked, not wanting to know.

Hermione yawned again. "Until I fall asleep," she answered. "That's what the poison does…it causes the victim to feel tired, immediately. It can only be fought for so long, before you just…can't stay awake anymore."

Harry and Ron shared a meaningful look over her head. That explained the yawning, and the lack of strength. She was already feeling the effects of the poison; it was already pulling her down toward unconsciousness. They didn't have long.

"Right then," Harry said. "We'll try it again, separately."

He stepped a few paces away from Ron and Hermione, and then stopped. He turned around to face them, taking a deep breath.

"Well?" Ron asked, after waiting for a bit.

Harry let out the breath he'd been holding, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fists. "Well, nothing," he snapped, angry with Ron for the stupid question, but realizing that he was mostly just angry with himself for not being able to apparate. For getting them into this, and for being the reason Hermione was in danger. "It's not working."

"What are we going to do?" Ron asked, still supporting Hermione.

"We'll have to walk back," Harry replied. Even as he said it, he knew it wouldn't work.

"Walk back?" Ron exclaimed. "Look at her, Harry. She's in no condition, she'll never make it."

"What choice do we have?" Harry wanted to know.

Ron thought furiously. No matter what they did, the delay in getting her to the Infirmary could very well cost Hermione her life. Why couldn't they bloody apparate?!

"You'll have to leave me here," Hermione said. She looked up at them, noting their surprise at her contribution to the conversation. "What?" she said. "I'm tired, not mentally defective. There's no other option. You'll have go to Hogwarts on foot, and bring the antidote back."

Ron shook his head. "Too long," he said. "It would take too long. By the time we got back you'd be…" He trailed off, unable to say aloud the thing that he feared most. "Besides," he added, "we can't leave you out here alone."

"You stay with her," Harry said decisively. "I'll go back. I'm the one who got us into this mess to begin with. It's my fault she was bitten."

Hermione watched his eyes; their usual clear green had gone dark with the weight of assumed responsibility. His self-blame distressed her; once Voldemort had been defeated she'd hoped to never see that expression on his face again. "Harry," Hermione protested, but he didn't let her finish.

"I'll go as fast as I can. And once I get the antidote, if I still can't apparate back here for some reason, I'll fly back on my broom. Just keep her awake!"

He said this last to Ron, and Ron nodded back, swallowing. "Hurry," he advised him.

Harry hesitated a moment, looking as if he wanted to say something to Hermione. Though he tried to hide it, the fear that he would never see her alive again was evident on his face. Ron didn't think he could stand to hear him give voice to it; luckily, Hermione didn't need him to. Understanding what he couldn't say, she stepped away from Ron and embraced Harry, feeling him tremble slightly. "It's all right," she whispered in his ear. "I love you, Harry."

Ron didn't know what Hermione had said, but over her shoulder he saw Harry's face contort as if he were about to cry. Oh, he couldn't bear this, he couldn't bear it.

Apparently, neither could Harry. He hugged Hermione back, hard; his face buried in her hair, and then stepped back. "Keep her awake," he said again to Ron. Then he turned and vanished into the forest, leaving them alone.

……….

As the shadows in the forest lengthened with the wane of the day, so the shadow of sleep grew longer over Hermione.

Ron had been watching it possess her, slowly laying more and more claim to her as the minutes stretched into hours. He was helpless to stop her slide into slumber, and - knowing that it was no ordinary sleep, but death itself that pulled her away from him – his impotence ate away at him.

He'd tried his best to keep her awake, engaging her in conversation and reminiscing about past adventures. When that hadn't worked, he'd argued with her, drawing upon his vast knowledge of how to provoke her into a row and using it to keep her too angry to fall asleep.

As she'd said, Hermione was tired, not mentally defective. She'd known what he was doing, but played along. Because really, what choice did she have? There was nothing they could do but wait for Harry, and so he tried to help her kill time, before time killed her.

Despite his best efforts, the poison was taking her. It and Ron were playing a dangerous game of tug-of-war, with Hermione as the rope, and the poison was stronger. When too long a silence had lasted in between his most recent question, and the answer that she should have given, Ron realized that she was slipping. Conversation alone was no longer enough. Ron stepped over to Hermione, who was sitting on the ground with her back up against the trunk of a tree, next to the cage that contained the Lotus Lepus, which was – like Hermione – dozing. He reached down, grabbed her hands, and hauled her up to him.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked, jerking awake. It was only then that she realized how close she'd been to sleep.

"Trying to keep you alive," Ron answered, ducking his head under her right arm. He drew it across his shoulders, holding onto her hand to keep it there. His left arm went around her waist, supporting her as they started walking away from the tree.

Hermione was out on her feet, barely moving as he led her across the clearing. She knew that he was carrying most of her weight, but she couldn't seem to break through the murky drowsiness that surrounded her to help him.

Ron fought for balance and momentum. His desperation was growing proportionately to her lack of response. "Come on," he said, hitching her up again. "Come on, love. Stay with me."

Hermione blinked, his words like a splash of cold water to her face. She shook her head like a prizefighter after too many punches and looked up at him. Sensing her movement, Ron paused and looked down to meet her gaze.

"Did you just call me 'love'?" she asked.

Ron immediately blushed. He could feel it. First his ears went red, then his cheeks and neck. The next thing he knew, his whole head was burning like a light bulb. Not for the first time, he inwardly cursed the fair complexion he'd been born with. Still, if his embarrassment was the least he had to suffer to keep her awake, he'd suffer it gladly.

"Uh…um…y-yes. I did," he stammered. He'd meant that to come out without the stutter, but had just realized how close they were. Her arm was still around his shoulders, and his left arm encircled her waist. She was drawn up flush against his side, and he could feel the dips and curves of her body against him. He hadn't noticed before now, because he was too focused on trying to keep her awake. But now, with her looking at him, watching him…he was all too aware of her.

Hermione's face was only inches from his own as they looked into each other's eyes for a moment that seemed to stretch out into infinity. Hers were the liquid color of coffee, not quite dark enough to be called black, but dark enough for Ron to drown in. Just now there was a spark in her eyes as she searched his for the answer to some question he hadn't been asked yet.

Longer…longer, and still he couldn't look away. Her gaze held him captive. When she smiled, suddenly – a big, wide, sunny smile that lit up her face – he was lost. "No one's ever called me that before," she confessed, taking Ron's breath away when her smile grew softer. "I liked it."

Ron was standing on the edge of a precipice…there was nowhere left to go, and she was drawing him over the edge. There was no other choice for him but to kiss her. He had to; he **needed** to. He wanted to feel her in his arms when he brought his mouth to hers. Unable to control it, his gaze dropped to her lips.

It was then, heated by the image in his mind of the two of them kissing passionately, that Ron realized what he was doing. Reality came crashing back in, and he flushed again…this time from shame.

Hermione was poisoned. Poisoned! She could die at any moment, and here he was, thinking about kissing her! How selfish could a bloke get?

Practically choking on the gall, Ron tore his gaze away from Hermione and focused on the ground before them. He resumed walking, and after a startled moment's stumble from Hermione, she walked with him.

If nothing else, his slip had woken her up, momentarily. Though her head was still nodding, she kept up with him and was moving more or less on her own steam. Her arm didn't leave Ron's shoulders, however, and he told himself that he kept his arm around her waist to keep her balanced.

They walked back and forth across the clearing a few times, saying nothing. Then, out of nowhere, Hermione spoke. "Have you heard from Ginny?"

Her conversational tone and mundane topic were directly at odds with the heavy, somewhat guilty thoughts that plagued him, and he looked at her again, disconcerted. "What? Oh…no, just that last owl on Christmas."

Hermione nodded. "I'm glad she's having a good time at Neville's…after what they went through with the whole Voldemort situation, they needed some time together away."

"Yeah," Ron said noncommittally. He liked Neville, actually, but this **was** his little sister they were talking about.

Hermione followed his thoughts, a shadow of a smile on her lips. She squeezed him a little. "He's good for her, you know. He's one of the most painfully earnest people we've ever met; he won't hurt her."

Mentally, Ron agreed with her. They walked for another beat in silence, and then Hermione sobbed once.

"I may never see her again," she said disconsolately. "Or my parents, or - "

"Yes you will," Ron interrupted, never stopping his relentless pacing with her.

Hermione didn't see the ground in front of her; she just kept walking where Ron led, too caught up in her melancholy to care. "I don't want to die," she whispered, choking on the tears she tried to hide.

Ron's heart broke a little, listening to the despair in her voice, but he couldn't stop to comfort her. He had to keep her moving, keep her awake. "Why?" he asked her suddenly, attempting to draw her out of the cocoon of pain she was wrapped in. "Tell me why, Hermione."

"Why don't I want to die?" Hermione said, indignantly. "What kind of question is that?"

Ron smiled. **There** was the Hermione Granger he knew and loved. "It's the kind of question you ask someone when you want to keep them talking," he answered, throwing her trademark lofty, matter-of-fact tone of voice back at her. "The sort of question you ask when you want them to think about why they're fighting to stay alive."

"Oh," Hermione said, sniffing. Then, just as Ron had hoped, she was sucked into answering. Hermione never **could** resist answering a question. "I…my parents would be heartbroken," she finally said. "I'm their only child, and they've always been somewhat leery of the wizarding world. I can't die and leave them blaming themselves for letting me go to school to be a witch."

"What else?" Ron prodded.

Hermione thought about it for a moment, mindlessly walking wherever Ron led her. "And I'm afraid," she admitted. "I don't know what would come after this. And…and I'm too young to find out! That's probably the biggest thing…there's still so much for me to learn!"

"That's my Hermione," Ron said affectionately, heartened to see the spark of life in his friend as she thought of more and more reasons to fight to stay alive. "Thinking that the worst thing about dying would be missing out on sixty or seventy years' worth of books you haven't read yet."

"Not just books," Hermione said. "Everything! There's too much living I've got to do, still. There's so much that I haven't done and haven't seen, and - "

She glanced up at Ron, and her voice was tinged with regret. "There's so much I haven't said."

Just then, Hermione stumbled. She hadn't been paying attention to where she was going all along, and her last sentence had distracted Ron. So neither of them saw the rock she tripped over.

Hermione tumbled to the ground. Ron held on to her, kept her from falling all the way down, and both of them landed on their knees. Immediately, Ron took her by the elbows and prepared to drag her up again, but she put restraining hands on his chest and looked up at him. "Ron, stop," she said.

Ron regarded her, assessing. She looked awake enough, for now, and he decided it would probably be all right to allow her to rest for awhile. When she saw that he was going to let her stay fallen, for the moment, Hermione sat back on her heels. Earlier, Ron had performed a melting charm on the snow in the clearing, and the grass beneath her was dry and springy. With Hermione's help, he'd also managed a summer spell, creating their own little pocket of warmth amid the wintery forest.

Ron was glad for it now, as he sat next to Hermione and raised his knees up, resting his arms atop them, watching her still. The walk appeared to have done her good; though she was still obviously tired, her eyes were clear and she was nervously plucking at the grass next to her. Wait…why was she nervous?

In answer to his unspoken question, Hermione looked up at him again. "I don't want to die," she said again, quietly. "But if I do, I don't want to die having never said the things I should've."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked uneasily.

"I mean…" Hermione searched for words. "People just live, and tend to believe they'll always be alive, and always have time for the things they want to do, or say. But it's not true…there's not always time, and I don't want to die without ever having told you the truth."

Ron's unease grew. What hadn't she told him? What had been awful enough that she felt she **couldn't** tell him, except on her death bed?

Desperately hoping to avoid hearing that she and Viktor Krum really **had** been together since fourth year, and she'd kept the truth from him to avoid an argument, or some other horrible thing, Ron rushed to speak first. 'Hermione, wait. You don't…you don't have to tell me anything."

"Yes, I do," Hermione said urgently. "I realize now how stupid it was to keep waiting for the right moment. If the poison had been faster, I'd never have gotten to tell Harry, either."

"Tell Harry what?" Ron croaked, remembering the grief-stricken expression on Harry's face when Hermione whispered in his ear. He'd looked as if he'd just lost…well, his best friend. Ron was sure now that it must be a truly horrendous secret, if she'd kept it from him, and Harry too.

"That I loved him," Hermione said.

Ron was blindsided, and it wasn't pretty. All of the blood drained from his face, and he paled, noticeably. Oh, this hurt. He'd never suspected…but he should have known…hadn't he always thought Harry was more her type?

Ron felt like he'd been kicked by a Hippogriff; his chest hurt, but he was somehow numb all over. His breath hitched alarmingly, as if on the threshold of a sob. He didn't notice. He couldn't think past the emotional blow. "You…you love Harry?" he asked painfully.

Hermione appeared not to notice his distress, too focused on getting through her confession. "I'm glad I got the chance to tell him, and I don't want to miss the chance to tell you."

With her words, she looked up at him again, reaching a hand out to touch him hesitantly on the arm. "I wouldn't…I wouldn't be the person I am today, if it weren't for you and Harry. You changed me for the better, and together the three of us became something great. Something important, more than any of us could have been on our own. You've always been there for me; for the past seven years you and Harry have been my family, as well as my friends, and I love you both."

The tightness in his chest loosened with relief as he understood what she meant. She loved Harry, but she loved him too. As **friends**. Thank Merlin. He hadn't thought this already dire situation could get any worse, but – under the assumption that the girl he loved was in love with his best friend – he realized he'd been wrong. Now, delivered from the panic resulting from that erroneous deduction, he could breathe again.

When he took a couple deep breaths to steady himself, Hermione finally noticed his reaction. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Ron laughed, weakly. "I thought," he panted with giddy relief, "I thought you were trying to tell me you were in love with Harry."

Hermione smiled nervously. "No," she said, watching him. "Not Harry." She took a deep breath of her own, for courage. "I'm in love with **you**."

Ron stared at her, unable to breathe again. He tried to control the single, joyous leap his heart gave. _Calm down,_ he told himself, sure he'd misunderstood. _She doesn't mean it that way._

"Hermione," he started, aiming for a calm, rational tone. "You're not feeling well."

"What?" Hermione said, taken aback.

"I just mean that you don't know what you're saying when you're like this. Once Harry gets back with the antidote, you'll feel better."

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "Ron Weasley!" she exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to tell you that? And all you can say is that maybe I'm not feeling well? Besides, I've been poisoned, not lobotomized. I'm in my right mind. I know what I'm saying, and I'm saying I love you!"

Whereas straight talk and simple declarations hadn't seemed to get through to him, the diatribe did…perhaps simply because he was more familiar with her tirades than expressions of devotion. "You…you love me?" he asked. For the second time that day Ron's whole world tilted…only this time it was amazing, it was wonderful. The look on his face was one of restrained longing, as if he couldn't truly believe it.

"I do," Hermione said, watching him avidly.

Ron's face broke into a big, goofy grin. "You mean it?"

Hermione smiled back, tears forgotten in the presence of his unmistakable elation. "I mean it," she answered, unable to keep herself from reaching out to brush a lock of his red hair back from his forehead tenderly.

Ron closed his eyes at the touch, feeling his heart trip. She loved him. And okay, it had taken the threat of death looming over her like a thundercloud to get her to admit it, but it was more than **he'd** managed to accomplish. He couldn't believe it. He opened his eyes again, searching her face. "Are you sure? Because…"

"I'm sure," Hermione said, clearly battling the urge to roll her eyes.

"…because I'm in love with you, too," Ron finished.

That stopped Hermione dead in her tracks. All thoughts of scolding Ron for not believing her scattered, as she suddenly found herself in the same position. In wonder, she said, "You are?"

Ron reached up and placed his hand over her own, which had slid down to trace lightly over his cheek. "I am," he said softly. His heart was beating so fast, he felt sure it would burst.

Hermione looked as if she knew the feeling. A pretty blush had risen on her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled up at him with new, unshed tears. Her chest rose and fell with each rapid breath as she gasped for air. "I…I always wondered if you… I thought maybe you might; I mean I **hoped** that you did," she babbled, delighting him. "And I knew if there was ever to be any sort of possibility of…us, I'd have to be the one to tell you first, but…I was never sure," she admitted. "I couldn't be certain how you felt, and I was afraid of wrecking our friendship. I was too insecure."

"But we know now," Ron said, and Hermione melted when he took her hand from his cheek and held it in both of his own. "And hey," he said after a moment of gazing at each other. "I would have gotten around to telling you."

Hermione laughed, and Ron realized it was her first one since being bitten. "I cannot even express how much I don't believe you," she said.

"I **would** have," he contested, acting defensive for her benefit. "…one day."

"What were you waiting for, graduation?" she asked, mirthful. "Leave it to you to wait until the last possible moment."

Ron grinned, not surprised that she knew exactly what he'd been thinking earlier that day. With the possible exception of Harry, no one knew him better than Hermione did. He loved her all the more for it.

Ecstatic over this newfound knowledge, Ron did something he'd been aching to do for longer than he could remember. He reached up with one hand and stroked her cheek, tracing his fingertips over her smooth skin.

Hermione's breath snagged, caught in her throat. Ron watched, transfixed, as the laughter in her eyes transformed into yearning. He was held prisoner again by her stare, helpless to resist anything she might ask of him.

"Ron," she said seriously, but shyly. "Will you kiss me?"

Merlin, he'd wanted nothing else for the past three years. Why had he waited so long, when she'd been right there the whole time?

__

Never again, he swore. Never again would he hesitate to act on his feelings for her. Starting now.

Ron slid his hand back so that his outstretched fingers touched her hair, and her cheek was cupped in his palm. When she leaned forward he tilted her head up slightly to him, and brought his lips down on hers. Her lips were the softest satin against his, and slightly parted, and he lost himself in the sweetness of their first kiss.

It was perfect…the kind of perfect that isn't supposed to exist in real life. They forgot everything around them…the clearing, the forest, the poison. Life before now, and worries about the future faded away in the immeasurable space of time it took for that one pure, flawless kiss.

When it finally ended, they came back to themselves gradually. Hermione's eyes remained closed after Ron drew back from her, and he watched her, captivated, as she slowly opened them and smiled at him.

He smiled back, unable to contain the feelings welling up inside him. Remembering his oath to never hesitate, he kissed her again.

.


	4. Nightfall

It was all his fault.

Harry ran through the forest, unmindful of the thin branches that whipped back and snapped at him as he barreled through the underbrush. He paid no attention to the stitch in his side, or the painful burning in his lungs as he gasped for air. He pushed his body beyond its limits, trying to cover as much ground as quickly as possible. He didn't know how long Hermione had to live.

And that was his fault.

He was fast, but he couldn't outrun the feelings of guilt that chased him. He ignored the warning signs his body sent him, telling him he was overexerting himself, but he couldn't escape the fear that the result of his actions would be the death of one of his best friends.

Able to see only the look of shock in Hermione's eyes after she'd been bitten, Harry didn't notice the exposed root until he'd tripped over it. Gravity and speed took him down, and they took him down hard. Harry's breath exploded out of him in a painful WHOOSH! This was most unfortunate, as he was pretty sure he'd just cracked a rib, too, and he really could have used the air for an agonized gasp.

When he could breathe again, Harry remained on the forest floor, sucking in oxygen. He squeezed his eyes closed, spasmodically clenching a handful of dirt in his fist. He didn't see the trees around him; he didn't hear the creatures of the forest, or the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves. All he could hear was his own voice informing Hermione that he didn't want to learn about the Lotus Lepus. He heard her warning him and Ron to stay away from the hare, because it was dangerous, and remembered not heeding her as he leaped forward to catch it.

Heart still pounding, he faced the truth, lying there on the ground. He was the reason Hermione was dying. It was his fault. He may as well have poisoned her himself. Even though a small voice in the back of his mind – sounding suspiciously like Hermione herself – told him that assuming culpability would change nothing, he knew that if he'd acted differently, more responsibly, she'd be all right, now.

His self-blame and heavy thoughts reminded him uncomfortably of the two long, dark years before Voldemort had finally been defeated. It had seemed as if he'd dwelled all that time in a mire of self-doubt, self-pity, and perpetual guilt, brought on in large part by the overwhelming responsibility that had been placed on his shoulders when he was merely an infant. In the wake of the dark lord's death, Harry supposed he'd gone a little bit in the other direction…happy for once to be unmindful of the consequences of his actions and feeling blissfully free of the stifling cloak of responsibility.

And now, Hermione was in danger as a result of his actions. Now, if she died, he would be responsible. It brought it all back…all of the fear and anger and balefulness of that dark period in his life. But this wasn't Voldemort…it wasn't some destiny thrust upon him against his will. This was Hermione.

__

It's all right, she'd said. _I love you, Harry._ Two simple sentences, completely at odds with each other. The first was a reassurance…she'd seen the guilt on his face, and tried to absolve him of it while simultaneously attempting to convince him that she'd be all right. And then she'd told him she loved him…only it had sounded a lot more like 'goodbye' to Harry. No matter how she tried to convince him she'd be all right, she would have had no reason to say goodbye to him if she truly thought she'd live till their next meeting.

__

And knowing that, he thought, _how are you going to feel if she dies, and you never got your arse up off the ground to get help for her!_

Turning the rage he felt toward himself outward, Harry furiously pushed himself up from the ground and scanned the forest floor for his glasses. He found them a meter away; one of the lenses was cracked.

Harry kneeled, pulling out his wand. "Occulus Repaire," he chanted. Magically, the crack in the lens healed itself, and he replaced his glasses and his wand. It wasn't lost on him that Hermione was the one who'd taught him that spell in the first place. It was only fair that he return the favor now, by saving her life.

With newfound determination, Harry got up and kept running.

……….

Evening arrived, and it brought darkness to the clearing. Though they didn't really need it for heat – the spring spell kept the clearing dry and warm – Ron built a fire at dusk, for illumination and to give himself something to do other than kissing Hermione.

Not that he'd wanted to stop. Grinning to himself now, Ron remembered that she hadn't seemed very keen on stopping, either. He thought they'd both gone a little mad with the revelation of their true feelings, and when they'd finally came up for air they discovered that night had nearly fallen around them, unnoticed.

Dizzy with excitement, lost in the taste and feel of her, Ron had reluctantly pulled away to begin building the fire. With Ron's help, Hermione had gotten to her feet and assisted him in collecting tinder.

It was better for her to be up and moving around, anyway, Ron thought. _Though_ – his mind continued, bringing a self-satisfied smile to his face – _she didn't seem to be in any danger of falling asleep when I was kissing her._

He cracked another dead branch in half and tossed it onto the now-blazing fire, causing fiery sparks to flurry madly about like angry fairies, vanishing up into the night with the slip of smoke. Satisfied with the progress of the blaze, Ron returned to Hermione and sat down beside her. He wasn't quite confident enough yet to put his arm around her, as he really wanted to, and so forced himself to settle for sitting as close to her as he could, so that their bodies were touching. He turned his head, looking down at her.

Hermione smiled back at him sleepily. The inactivity was making it harder to stay alert, but she couldn't – and didn't really want to – think beyond the warm, fuzzy feelings she was experiencing in the aftermath of their kissing. She was still awed and ecstatic that he returned her feelings, and didn't want to come down from that cloud long enough to dwell upon the uglier possibilities that could be the result from this evening.

Going with that flow of thinking, Hermione did what she most wanted to do in the world, right then, and rested her head on Ron's shoulder…just wanting to be near him.

Her action emboldened Ron, who pulled away just long enough to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her into him. She fit snugly against his side; he could feel wisps of her hair tickling at his neck, and he'd never felt so content. They sat there together for a moment in comfortable silence, before Ron asked, "Are you feeling all right?"

Hermione hesitated before answering. She couldn't pretend that she didn't feel the Siren's song of sleep pulling at her. Though she'd been able to ignore it for a time while distracted by…certain other activities…she felt the full force of it again, now. But telling Ron that would only worry him, and accomplish nothing. Determinedly, Hermione shoved all thoughts of it away, wanting only to enjoy the moment. It was all she could do. She placed a hand on his knee, squeezing gently, and selected her words carefully. "I couldn't be happier."

Ron smiled and ducked his head, blushing. Hermione wasn't sure if it was because of her hand on his knee, or because of her words, but it was pretty darn cute, in any case.

A moment later she had her answer when he worked up the nerve to look at her, shy again. "Me too," he confessed.

Hermione was suddenly overcome by a wave of tenderness for him. She reached up with her other hand and ran her fingers along the line of his jaw, from the base of the ear to his chin. He was very still, held immobile by her touch. His blue eyes were a stormy violet in the firelight, and dark with passion as they watched her.

"You know, Ron," she said a little huskily. "The last time you looked at me that way, we somehow lost the rest of the day."

"No danger of that now, I guess, since it's already dark," Ron grinned, looking around. "Besides, I was just doing my part to keep you from falling asleep."

Hermione arched an eyebrow, amused. "Oh, I see," she said. "You kissed me for over an hour because you were trying to keep me awake."

Ron placed his free hand over his heart, affecting an earnest expression. "Sometimes, certain sacrifices must be made. And far be it from me to shirk my responsibilities," he declared.

Hermione giggled, then realized with horror that she was actually giggling. What was wrong with her? She felt dreamy, like she was floating, and fought down a pang of alarm. _You're drifting. Merlin…mustn't let Ron know how close you are. Play along, for his sake._

Keeping her voice light, and aiming for a playful, coy tone, she said "Well, if you want to keep me awake some more, you're welcome to kiss me again."

Ron certainly looked tempted. "I don't think my ego could take it if you nodded off in the middle of a snog, though," he said.

Hermione looked up at him, quiet, but sincere. "I can honestly say that when we kiss, sleep is the farthest thing from my mind."

They both blushed at her honesty, and she buried her face in his shoulder to hide her flaming cheeks.

Ron cleared his throat. After a moment, surprised by his own boldness, he said, "Well maybe I should just kiss you all night, then, until Harry gets back." Which he thought was a brilliant idea, honestly, even if he couldn't believe he'd just said it.

Hermione sighed. "I could live with that."

Ron blinked, peering down at her. There had been a long pause before she'd answered him, and when she did, her voice had been decidedly sleepy. Now, all he could see was the top of her head, where it rested on his shoulder. "Hermione," he prompted.

When she didn't answer, he shifted, alarm shooting through him. "Hermione? Wake up!"

He looked down into her face; her eyes opened slightly in response to his command. Immediately his light-hearted mood vanished and knife-edged worry took its place. Merlin, she was slipping away…fading right in front of him, while he sat there flirting!

Ron jumped to his feet, hoisting Hermione up with him. "No," she protested weakly.

"Yes," Ron countered. "Let's go, we're walking."

"Back and forth," Hermione answered tiredly. It was another routine they'd developed between them just that day. And so – knowing his need to keep trying – she allowed him to drag her across the clearing, although she had a strong, foreboding feeling that this time it wouldn't make a difference. That this time he wouldn't be able to haul her back from the brink, and she'd slip over.

She hated the fear he was living with. She hated knowing what he'd go through if she couldn't fight this off for long enough. But she was tired beyond reason of fighting it.

"Come on, Hermione," Ron said, sensing that he was losing her. "Stay with me. Stay awake. Fight it."

"I can't," she said.

"Yes you can," Ron said forcefully, as if he could win this battle for her through his will alone.

"It's beating me," Hermione said, her voice already saturated with defeat. "And we both know it."

Shaken, angry now, Ron stopped. Shook her. "Is that what you want? Is it?" he demanded, when she didn't answer him. "Do you want to leave me here alone, now that we finally know how we feel about each other? All these years, afraid to tell you, getting jealous over Viktor bleeding Krum and every other bloke who ever looked at you, because I wanted you for myself; always so close and never able to touch you. And now I can hold you, and kiss you, and believe that finally – after all this time – we can really have some sort of future together, and you're just going to give up?"

"I don't want to," Hermione whispered miserably, feeling hot tears burning in her eyes.

"Then fight it," Ron said sharply, hating himself for being harsh to her, but desperate not to let her go. "Unless you **want** to die."

"I don't," Hermione sobbed. "I don't want to die, Ron." She sagged, her dead weight pulling him down. He shifted and held her up by the waist; her hands rested flat against his chest. She looked up into his face, imploring. "I don't want to," she repeated forlornly. "Not now. Especially not now."

She kissed him gently, and he tasted the salt of her tears. "You won't," he swore. "I won't let you die."

Loving him, wanting to live, to feel alive, Hermione pressed her lips against his passionately, sliding her arms up around his neck.

Ron's head was swimming; there were too many emotions roiling in him. He remembered Hermione – back in fifth year, he thought it was – once describing all of the things that were contributing at that time to Cho Chang's state of mind. Ron had said that one person couldn't feel all of that at once, but now he knew he was wrong. He was still awed that she loved him; he was afraid he would lose her. He felt protective of her, and self-pitying because this was so ironically unfair. He was hopeful and nervous and loving and worried. And hateful…hateful toward the poison that coursed through her veins. It was killing her, and it was killing him to watch it.

And now, desire grew within him as she pressed her body against his, kissing him as if there were no tomorrow. For her, there might not be. She was drowning, and Ron was all she had to hold on to in an entire ocean that was dragging her under. She poured herself into him, becoming bolder by the moment, and he knew if it went on much longer, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from accepting what she so freely offered to him.

Reluctantly, he pushed her away. "Hermione, no. Not like…this isn't the right time."

"There is no time, if not now," she disagreed, the heat in her eyes unmistakable.

Ron's heart was breaking. He touched her hair softly. "I…I can't do this. It's got to be wrong to feel all of…this…" Here he waved his hand vaguely between them, indicating their relationship, and continued, "…when you're in such danger."

Hermione shook her head. "It's not wrong," she said. "I understand what you mean, because I'm happy, too. I love you; I only wish I'd told you sooner. We…we could have had more time."

Her voice was breaking; it was difficult for her to speak clearly through the tears, but she pressed on, her face a portrait of tragedy. "I don't want to die, Ron. But if I'm going to, I don't want to have never…really lived."

She stopped and took a deep breath to steady herself. "I want to be with you," she said, and looked him in the eyes, begging him silently to understand.

Ron was torn, torn in so many directions. But he knew this…he couldn't deny her. He couldn't, and he didn't want to. So the next time she kissed him, instead of pushing her away, he pulled her closer.

.


	5. The Excido Remedy

After, Ron held her in his arms, feeling a fulfillment he'd never known before. As he tried to sort through the miasma of emotions swirling inside him, he came to realize that there was no one word that could describe all of his feelings right now.

He knew he was happy…deliriously so. After three years of standing on the sidelines, afraid to risk his heart, he finally had exactly what he wanted…Hermione. He was still having trouble believing how lucky he was that she wanted him in return.

He also knew he was grateful; the gift of her love for him was so utterly unexpected, and so priceless. She overloaded his senses. The length of her body was warm against his; she was lying on her side, tucked up against his torso with one arm resting on his chest. Their legs were tangled together. He could smell the scent of her hair, and could still taste her on his lips. The way she fit in his embrace was uncanny; it was as if she'd always been meant to be there, and he just hadn't realized how empty his arms were until Hermione filled them.

But more than anything, he felt love…bigger and more complete than he'd ever imagined it could be. It covered them both and wrapped them up in the same, warm blanket of naked emotion. Tenderness washed through him, and he trailed a light caress down from her shoulder blade to the small of her back, wishing it were her skin he was touching, instead of the rough fabric of her robes. Ron smiled a little, into the dark. She'd insisted upon getting dressed after, not wanting to risk Harry returning to find them lying there nude together, in the woods. Knowing that it had taken them three hours or so to get to the clearing where they located the Lotus Lepus, they figured it would take Harry at least three to return to Hogwarts and fly back on his broom. He'd been gone for near that, now, and could return at any time. Though Ron thought it might be worth it just to see the look on Harry's face, he ultimately decided prudence was best, in this case. And so they had fumbled back into their clothing, a little awkward together in the aftermath of the baring of their souls (and bodies, for that matter. Not that Hermione had had anything to feel self conscious about; she had a smashing body, and he was delighted to see that she blushed all over when he told her so).

But then Hermione had dispelled any feelings of shyness when she gently pulled him back down to the ground and stretched out beside him, weaving her arms and legs through his like a vine. They'd been lying there together ever since, sharing the intimacy of the moment in the dying light of the fire, intoxicated with each other. They talked quietly about their feelings, and the future. After awhile they'd lapsed into a comfortable silence, and Ron's mind began to try to work through the waves of emotion. He'd been trying to find a word to sum it all up, and couldn't. He felt happy, and grateful, and loving, and had discovered a capacity for gentleness in himself that he hadn't known he possessed.

He knew this was a huge turning point for them. After today, their relationship was going to be something totally new, a wonderful move forward from the friendship he'd had to be satisfied with for the past three years, and he couldn't wait. He couldn't wait to find out what kind of a boyfriend he'd make. He wanted to be perfect for her. He couldn't wait to be able to kiss Hermione hello and goodbye, and have it be a perfectly natural part of their interaction. This was all what he'd wanted for so long, and he couldn't wait to live the dream.

But he also knew that he was afraid. He'd heard once that to love someone was to offer them up as a hostage to fate, and now he understood. Now that he had her, he was even more afraid of losing her. Now that he had everything he ever wanted, so much more could be taken from him. Even now, seemingly safe and warm in his embrace, something was trying to kill her, and he couldn't stop it.

Subconsciously he tightened his arms around her, as if he could keep the poison in her blood at bay just by holding on to her hard enough.

It was another beat before he realized there'd been no response from Hermione, to the constriction of his arms or to his caress. Not wanting to disturb the peaceful moment, Ron's voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "Hermione," he murmured.

No response.

Now worry crashed down on him, swift and jarring. Fear bit into him with sharp teeth as he gripped her shoulder, pulling her away from him so he could see her face. Hermione's head lolled back; her eyes were closed.

Her eyes were closed!

Giving voice to an inarticulate cry of horror, Ron shook her, hard. "Hermione!" he said loudly, his tone full of urgency. "Hermione, wake up!"

Hermione's eyelids flickered, then opened slightly. She mumbled unintelligibly, raising a limp hand to her face as if to block him out.

Ron grabbed the hand and tore it away from her face. He shook her again. This time her eyes opened nearly half way, and her response was clearer. "Stop," she said.

"No," he replied, his heart pounding furiously. "Wake up. You're falling asleep."

He was sitting, now, and Hermione was resting mostly in his lap. Now she allowed her head to fall back against his shoulder and she turned her face into his neck. "I'm so tired," she said quietly.

Ron's nerves were jumping. Merlin, she'd been only moments from slumber. He stood up, yanking her to her feet, cursing himself all the while for letting his guard down and letting her drift off while he complacently thought about his **feelings**.

He lurched forward, dragging her across the clearing with him again. Hermione made a small mew of protest, but she was in no condition to stop him. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be enough to rouse her, now. Ron was practically carrying her, with minimal effort on Hermione's part.

Ron felt panic reaching up to clutch at him. It wasn't working. He was losing her. He stopped walking and shook her again. "Look at me," he said forcefully. "Hermione, look at me!"

Hermione tried to do as he asked. She felt as if she were wrapped in layers of cotton that muffled his voice and dulled her senses. She could barely stand up, she was so weak, but she managed to open her eyes and fix them on his face. Her arm felt weighed down…too heavy to lift, but she fought through the fog of sleep and raised her hand to his temple, lightly brushing back that defiant, stray lock of hair. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"No," Ron said, shutting out her apology. "No, 'Mione. Don't do this. Fight it!"

Hermione sagged as she lost the strength to stand on her own, but she fought to keep her eyes on his. "I can't…I can't anymore."

"Yes you can!" Ron cried, shaking her helplessly. It wasn't working, she was slipping away from him, and he couldn't stop it. He couldn't hold on to her.

He fell back to the ground with her, cradling her in his arms. He could feel forces beyond his control converging on them now, ripping her from his grasp. He felt as if Death had been coming for her all along, and he'd been a fool to think he could keep her safe from it. "Please," he begged her, uncaring of the tears streaking his own face. "Please, 'Mione, don't do this to me. Don't leave me. You can't leave me, now."

Desperately, he lowered his head and kissed her. He crushed his lips on hers, not knowing what else to do, just not wanting her to die. He sobbed while kissing her, holding her to him even as she sank deeper into the depths where he couldn't follow.

Now Hermione was crying too. When he started to draw back she clung to him weakly. "Love you," she whispered in his ear. "Ron…I love you."

With that said, the last of Hermione's strength seemed to slip away, her reserves depleted. Her long, dark lashes fluttered once on her cheeks as her eyes closed for the last time.

……….

With a BANG!, Harry and Hagrid apparated. Harry looked about wildly for Ron and Hermione. "Where are they?!" he said frantically, seeing only more snow-covered trees.

"I told you," Hagrid said, urgency replacing the usual amiable rumble of his voice. "There's a fifty-meter radius around the Lotus Lepus; you can't apparate directly into it. Now, is this where you left 'em?"

Harry forced himself to calm down, and looked around. "No," he said, recognizing the section of the path they were on. "They were in the clearing. Come on, it's this way."

Harry led Hagrid along the path quickly, not pausing when the half-giant had to slow down to duck under a low-slung branch. And so he was the first one into the clearing. What he saw there stopped him as effectively as Hermione's _Petrificus Totalis_ spell.

In the center of the clearing, in the glow of the embers of a dying fire, he saw his friends on the ground. There was a wide circle of clear ground around them, unmarked by snow or ice. Ron was cradling Hermione in his arms. She wasn't moving, and Ron was hunched over her, his shoulders shaking.

Harry's heart lurched painfully as he realized they were too late. He hadn't been fast enough.

Still, he stumbled forward, unable to truly believe this could be happening. Behind him, Hagrid had caught up and seen the two students on the ground by the ring of uneven stones that had banked the fire. "Merlin," he breathed, and then hurried forward after Harry.

Ron sensed movement, and looked up. His face was wet with tears, but hope flickered in his eyes when he saw his friend rushing toward him. "Harry!" he said, shaky with relief. "Hurry…she's almost gone. Where's the antidote?"

Harry's knees nearly buckled with relief. 'Almost', Ron had said. So she was still alive! He skidded to a halt, falling to his knees beside his friends. "I don't have it," he said, pulling at Hermione.

"What?!" Ron exploded, frantic. "What do you mean, you don't have it? You left hours ago!"

Even as he shouted, he was helping Harry to pull Hermione up. He had no idea what his friend thought he was going to do with her once they got her up, since they couldn't apparate, but it was clear that he had some sort of plan.

"I didn't make it all the way back," Harry explained, jerking his head toward the Hogwarts Gamekeeper. "I found Hagrid before I got there, and he told me that it's the bloody rabbit. That's why we couldn't apparate out of here."

Ron spared a hasty glance for Hagrid, who was hurrying over to the cage that housed the Lotus Lepus. He picked it up, awakening the hare inside, which was none too pleased. It let out a shriek of surprise and hopped around a few times within the confines of its prison. Hagrid paid it no attention, but directed his orders to Ron and Harry. "I'll get it far enough away fer you ta' apparate back, and then come back on foot. Get her to Madame Pomfrey as quick as yer can!"

Ron swung Hermione into his arms, and watched Hagrid stride from the clearing, the cage swinging beside him.

Harry watched, too. Finally, when Hagrid was far enough away, Harry said, "All right, let's do it."

Ron and Harry closed their eyes and concentrated. A moment later they opened them again, hearing the BANG! of their displacement echo back from the hills that surrounded the school of Hogwarts. They had apparated as close as possible, and were now standing before the tall gates of the castle.

"Quick," Harry said, leading them inside.

Harry thought for an instant to ask Ron if he needed help with Hermione, but a glance revealed that he was having no trouble carrying her. His breath was ragged with worry, however, and he panted as they raced up the stairs to the hospital wing.

For her part, Hermione lay seemingly lifeless in Ron's strong arms. Her eyes remained closed, but Harry was relieved to hear her mumbling incoherently as she was jostled on their hasty journey up the stairs.

Finally, they reached the infirmary and burst inside, startling Madame Pomfrey. She'd been wheeling a cart full of supplies down the center aisle, but when the two breathless boys and one nearly-unconscious girl banged the doors open she was thoroughly distracted. The cart – lacking direction, but not momentum – veered off and crashed into one of the beds, sending scores of towels and pans and tubes clattering to the floor.

"Oh my," Pomfrey said, her hand resting briefly over her suddenly thundering heart. Then the healer in her took over and she was rushing forward to the trio. "What happened?"

"Lotus Lepus," Ron and Harry said in unison. They started to elaborate, each describing what had happened independently, resulting in a jumble of indecipherable words.

"When?" she demanded, already moving away from them, toward the supply room.

"A little over three hours ago, I think," Harry said.

"It's a miracle she's still alive," Madame Pomfrey said, surprised into a pause. "Most people bitten by the Lotus Lepus succumb within two hours. But that just means there's no time to waste. Over there," she pointed toward one of the empty beds. "The antidote has to be mixed, and I've got to gather the ingredients. It'll be just a few moments. Whatever you do, keep her awake!" she commanded sharply, and hurried into the supply room.

Ron quickly moved to the bed that Madame Pomfrey had indicated, laying Hermione upon it gently. Harry followed, taking up a position on the opposite side of the bed. He watched as Ron smoothed Hermione's hair back from her forehead, keeping hold of the hand closest to him. He saw the anxiousness on his friend's face, and the love. Neither really surprised him, but he found himself moved by the obvious display of affection on Ron's part. He'd never seen him be so obvious about it before, and supposed that it was easier with Hermione being barely aware of her surroundings.

A moment later, however, he was forced to revise his assessment of the situation when Hermione stirred and jerked the hand that Ron was holding spasmodically. "Ron," she murmured.

Ron squeezed her hand. "I'm here, love," he answered tenderly.

Harry blinked in surprise at the endearment, but Ron didn't notice. He continued speaking softly to Hermione. "It's going to be all right," he promised her. "Just hold on a little longer for me."

Hermione's response was weak, but neither boy had trouble hearing it in the emptiness of the infirmary. "I love you," she whispered.

"Stay with me," Ron urged her.

Harry was thunderstruck. Had he just heard what he thought he heard? Because it sounded an awful lot like Hermione had just confessed to loving Ron. But the **real** kicker was that Ron didn't appear to be surprised. Not at all.

Eyes wide behind his glasses, Harry stared at Ron until his friend sensed his gaze and looked up at him. "Ron," Harry said hesitantly, "What…exactly happened, after I left?"

Ron turned a light shade of pink, but his obvious embarrassment wasn't enough to distract him from Hermione; he put off answering long enough to check on her again before returning to Harry's question.

"Well," he said, trying to explain, "we were there for three hours, mate. We did a lot of talking, and…she was afraid that if she didn't say some things, she wouldn't get a chance, later. Like what she said to you," he added.

Harry nodded, swallowing. He hoped Ron knew that Hermione had meant it in a platonic way. From his lack of jealous reaction to it, Harry figured Ron probably did.

Ron went on, stumbling a bit now that he was in emotional territory. "And…well, she said she didn't want to die without ever having told me the truth." He looked up at Harry again, elation breaking through and outweighing the embarrassment. "She said she loves me," Ron said, smiling widely, looking as if he were still a bit surprised by the admission. "Has for years," he continued, "and never told me because she didn't know how I felt."

Harry grinned at this wondrous news. "That sounds familiar," he joked.

Ron nodded, glancing down at Hermione again, checking her status without really being aware that he was doing it. Her eyes were still closed, and she seemed delirious…her mumblings were scarcely discernible now, and Harry frowned, searching for Madame Pomfrey over Ron's shoulders. There was no sign of the healer, and he wondered how much longer it would take to collect all of the ingredients.

Ron continued talking. "And then I told her how **I** felt, and…well." Here he fumbled his words, and Harry got the distinct impression that his friend was omitting something from the story. "And then we got together," Ron finished abruptly.

Harry's eyes narrowed in speculation, taking in the heat rising on Ron's face. He noticed again the way he was holding Hermione's hand, and remembered how tenderly he'd brushed hair back from her forehead. He seemed to be very comfortable, all of the sudden, with touching Hermione, and that's when it hit Harry.

Stunned, but pretty sure he already knew the answer, Harry asked, "Ron…just how 'together' did you and Hermione get?"

Ron immediately blushed and ducked his head, and Harry's mouth dropped open. Blimey!

Still not able to meet Harry's gaze, Ron started stuttering alarmingly. "Well…it just…we just…I mean, she was falling asleep, and I…"

"You mean you shagged Hermione to keep her **awake**?!" Harry interjected incredulously.

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron protested, going several shades brighter in embarrassment and indignation. "Keep it down, will you?"

In a 'if you'd let me **finish**' sort of tone, Ron continued, "Besides, it wasn't like that. We just…she was barely hanging on, mate. She was slipping, and we both knew it. She started saying all kinds of things, because she was afraid, you know? And it was hard to watch."

Ron looked down at Hermione's face. She was frowning slightly, unaware of her surroundings, fighting the inner battle with whatever strength she had left. Ron's own expression was pained. Clearly he was wishing he could help her, as Harry thought he must have felt back in the clearing. "It's not easy to watch someone you care about die, little by little," Ron said finally. "It was impossible to see her fear and **not** respond to it. And…well, it just happened. I don't regret it," he said a little defensively, but his expression melted back into concern as he watched Hermione. "I just hope **she** doesn't."

Harry was still a bit shocked, but there was no time to assimilate it all, because just then Madame Pomfrey returned. She was pushing a new cart that contained several beakers full of multi-coloured liquid. As she parked the cart at the foot of Hermione's bed, she assessed her patient's condition. "She's too close," Pomfrey snapped, "wake her up!"

Without a word, Ron slipped one of Hermione's arms around his shoulders and hauled her up off the bed. As she was pulled upright, Hermione seemed to come out of it, a bit. "What?" she said thickly.

"We're walking," Ron said, pacing with her to the opposite side of the room.

"Back and forth," Hermione mumbled, and Ron nearly smiled at the completion of the routine. Now that she was moments away from a cure, he was feeling much better. In the absence of the stress and worry, euphoria was fighting for first place among his emotions, again. Really, everything was looking up. Hermione was going to be all right. She loved him, he loved her, and they'd made love for the first time that day. How could it get any better?

As Ron steered Hermione back toward the bed, he amended his thoughts. It **would** get even better, he realized. Once she was well again, she and Ron would be together. They'd be a **couple**. Finally. Though it boggled his mind, a little, he couldn't wait. He was smiling when he laid her back down on the bed.

Harry had moved aside to allow Madame Pomfrey unrestricted access to Hermione, and watched carefully as she prepared the antidote. He was still angry with himself for not learning about the Lotus Lepus when he'd had the chance – placing Hermione in danger unnecessarily – and had resolved to never again turn down a learning opportunity. Now, Pomfrey's potion turned bright green and fizzled. When it started emitting a wispy mist, the healer declared it was ready.

As she moved toward Hermione, Madame Pomfrey spared a glance for Ron, who was watching intently. "You did a good job with her," she said, "keeping her awake all this time. Saved her life, you know." She looked back down at Hermione, lifting her head and bringing the beaker to her lips. "It's a shame she won't remember any of it."

Madame Pomfrey's statement completely wiped the smile from Ron's face. Panic battled with confusion as he looked at her, not understanding. "What?"

Pomfrey paused, looking at Ron in surprise. "It's the antidote," she explained once she realized he didn't know. "It'll stop the progression of the poison, but it will also cause her to forget everything from the moment she was bitten. That's why it's called the Excido Remedy…it comes from the Latin word meaning to forget, or lose one's memory."

"What?" Ron said again, this time in despair.

Harry spoke up, remembering something Hermione had said back in the forest. "Wait…this isn't the only antidote, is it? Do the other ones cause amnesia, too?"

Madame Pomfrey turned to him, nodding. "There **are** two other antidotes, you're quite correct. And neither of them shares this particular side effect. But," she added regretfully, sensing their distress, "they have their own, and the Excido Remedy is the only one that is one hundred percent effective. With either of the other two, you're taking a chance that it won't work, and the victim could still die."

Harry looked at Ron on the other side of the bed. His friend was obviously devastated. Other than Hermione herself, Harry was the only person in the world who could have possibly understood Ron's heart in that instant. It was sinking in, now, that Hermione wouldn't remember him helping her, their mutual declarations of adoration, the kissing, or them making love for the first time together. She'd go back to being just his friend, with no memory of them ever having been anything more to each other.

Ron had just gone from having everything he'd ever wanted, to losing it all in the space of one sentence.

Across Hermione's nearly unconscious form, Harry's sympathetic eyes met Ron's tormented ones. They didn't need any words to communicate. There was no alternative, and both of them knew it. If Hermione didn't get the antidote, she'd die. Between that and Ron losing the love of his life, there was no choice.

There had never really been any decision to make really, in any case…Madame Pomfrey fully intended to save her patient, regardless of what anyone might've said to the contrary. But she'd been drawn into the silent communion between the two boys, as well, and had hesitated despite herself. When the red haired boy – Weasley, she remembered his name was – nodded mutely at her and stood aside, Pomfrey poured the bright green potion down Hermione's throat.

The reaction was immediate. From experience, Madame Pomfrey knew how absolutely horrid the Excido Remedy was reputed to taste, and so she was not surprised when Hermione's eyes opened wide and she sat straight up in bed. "Oh, ugh!" the girl said, quite distinctly.

Ron and Harry crowded back around the bed, anxious to see if she was all right. "Hermione, are you okay?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked at him, blinking, for several long seconds before she seemed to find her voice. "Harry? What…?"

Harry smiled with relief. Her color was returning quickly, and she was more alert now than she'd been even right after being bitten by the Lotus Lepus. They'd done it…they'd been in time.

Madame Pomfrey tsk'd, and pushed Hermione back down on the bed so that she was reclining again. "Now now," she said, "You'll want to rest up. The poison of the Lotus Lepus is powerful stuff, and while you're in no danger, anymore, you'll still be feeling its effects, for awhile. You're going to sleep good tonight, I can tell you that."

Hermione's expression was a bit vacant. "The Lotus Lepus?" she asked wonderingly. "Oh yes…it bit me."

She bolted up in bed again, glancing between Harry and Ron. "Did we get it? Is it still out there? It's too cold for it to survive another night out in the forest alone," she said worriedly.

Harry put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her down again, slowly. "We got it," he reassured her. "Hagrid's taking it back to his hut, now."

Hermione frowned. "We got it?"

Ron spoke up for the first time since she'd ingested the antidote. "You're the one who got it in the cage," he answered her. "But you'd been bitten, and Harry left to get the antidote. We…we stayed in the forest."

"This young man saved your life!" Madame Pomfrey said, the way a proud mother would brag about her child's good grades.

Hermione looked at Ron, surprised, but Ron didn't appear to have heard the healer. "I kept you awake," he continued. "Do you…do you remember any of that?"

Harry cast a glance at Ron. His friend was watching Hermione as if his life depended upon her answer.

"I…I remember being in the forest. And I remember you two chasing off after the Lotus Lepus like a couple of idiots," she said, shaking her head with a small smile on her face. It faded away after a moment, however, as she continued. "And then…I remember a pain in my hand."

Hermione stopped and held up her hand, which still sported two puncture wounds. She looked at them, dazed for a moment. She frowned again, concentrating. "But I don't…after that I can't…" She stopped, looking at them all. "That's so odd," she said. "The next thing I remember is swallowing that horrible potion."

Ron's heart broke with her words. It was real, then. She truly remembered nothing of their time together. She didn't remember telling him she loved him. She didn't know that they'd lost their virginity to each other that day. She didn't know – again – how he felt about her.

Nothing had ever hurt this much before. Ever.

Something of the anguish he felt must have shown on his face, because he was startled out of his thoughts by Hermione's voice. Blankly, he looked at her and – realizing he was somewhere else – she repeated herself. "I said, are you all right, Ron? You look…well, not so good."

Ron tried to brighten his expression for her…tried to go back to being friend-Ron, instead of lover-Ron, but oh…it was hard. Swallowing the pain, Ron searched for an answer. "I'm fine," he lied.

Across the bed, Harry watched as Ron heartbreakingly conjured a smile for Hermione, and said, "I'm just glad you're all right."

Hermione smiled back at him, unaware of the effect her obliviousness had on him. Harry saw Ron wilt at her blind acceptance of his answer, and tried to think of a way to get him out of here before he couldn't keep up the ruse any longer. He thought quickly.

"Ron," Harry said, as if it had just occurred to him, "don't you have that essay due Monday, when classes start again?"

"What essay?" Hermione asked, immediately concerned that she'd missed a project.

"Oh, that…essay. It was an extra credit one that Professor Flitwick gave Ron to make up for…uh…the one before."

Ron was too caught up in his misery, and didn't see where Harry was going with this. "Harry, what…?"

"I don't think you should put it off any longer," Harry said loudly, speaking over Ron's protest. "You don't want to get a bad mark on it, after the last one."

Predictably, Hermione took Harry's side. "Oh, go on, Ron! If you keep putting everything off, you'll have to do it all at the last minute, and you won't have enough time! You can't afford to fall behind! Go on, I'll be fine, really, and I'll see you later."

Finally, Ron got it. He realized that Harry was giving him an out…a way to climb out of this particular level of hell. He sketched a weak, sickly smile at Harry and made good his escape from the infirmary.

Hermione watched him go, noting his slumped shoulders but not knowing the reason for it. She turned to Harry. "Is he all right?"

……….

It was nearly an hour later when Harry found Ron out on the Quidditch pitch. He was standing there silently, gazing off into the distance when Harry approached.

Noticing that Ron seemed not to be aware of his presence, Harry spoke. "I've been looking for you."

Startled, Ron glanced at him, then around at the pitch as if he wasn't sure how he'd arrived there. "I…figured I'd come out and fly around for awhile. Try to think."

"Ron," Harry said hesitantly, "where's your broom?"

Ron blinked, looking down at his empty hands. He glanced around vaguely, as if he thought he might've dropped it. "I guess I forgot to bring it with me," he said finally, allowing his hands to drop.

They stood there together in silence for a few minutes before Ron spoke again, his voice quiet and lonely in the night. "I love her, Harry. And we were…it was perfect. It was everything I ever wanted. And it would have worked. I'd have made her happy…I know I would have."

Hating to see his friend like this, but knowing the problem wouldn't just go away, Harry asked quietly, "What are you going to do?"

Ron took a shuddering breath, and Harry allowed him as long as he needed to think it through. At last, he said, "I don't know. I…I can't tell her. But Merlin, I don't know how I can pretend nothing happened between us."

"Why would you have to pretend?" Harry wanted to know. "You could just…tell her."

Ron's reply was bitterly sarcastic. "Sure. That would go over well. Hey, Hermione, I had a great time yesterday when you confessed your love to me. You're a great kisser, and losing my virginity to you was everything I ever thought it would be, and more. Oh, what's that you say? You don't remember any of that? Oh, sorry. Never mind."

Harry cleared his throat, feeling awkward and out of his depth. But Ron was his best friend, and he had to do **something**. "I…see your point," he said. "But maybe you could just start over. I mean, you know how she feels about you, now. You could just tell her how **you** feel, and you two could still…"

Ron was already shaking his head. "I can't," he said miserably. "I couldn't be with her and keep that kind of secret. It would…hurt too much."

"It looks like **this** is pretty painful," Harry noted.

Ron couldn't deny this, as it felt like his heart had been torn in two. Half of it was there in his chest, where it belonged. The other half was up in the hospital wing, with a girl who had no idea she possessed it. It was excruciating.

"We can't tell her," Ron said finally. "Even if it kills me…she can't ever know."

.


	6. In Harry Veritas

The students returned on Sunday, and classes resumed the day after that. By then Hermione was well enough to leave the infirmary, and her little misadventure didn't cause her to miss a beat with schoolwork.

But she appeared to be the **only** one getting back into the swing of things. Harry and Ron were acting oddly, indeed. Apart from mealtimes, she hadn't seen Ron for more than two minutes at a time at any point over the past week. He didn't seek her out, anymore, not even for help with homework. When she happened upon him somewhere, or went looking for him, he seemed on edge and had trouble meeting her eyes. He always quickly came up with reasons to leave; all of them sounded like excuses to Hermione. In class, he no longer goofed off, whispering with her and Harry. Instead, he studiously avoided her questioning glances and remained almost obsessively focused on the lessons. Hermione knew she should be thrilled that he was finally paying attention to the lectures, but the achievement felt hollow.

Even at mealtimes he was unusually quiet, no longer laughing and joking with his friends about their day, about Quidditch starting up again soon, or the antics they'd pulled in Divination. Instead he ate quietly, eyes on his food, and left immediately after finishing. Worse, every time Hermione tried to talk to him, to engage him and discover the root of his behavior, he grew more withdrawn.

Case in point: at breakfast this morning, Hermione had received an owl from Viktor Krum with the post. Despite herself, she was actually glad to see the letter attached to the owl's leg, if for no other reason than it would make Ron angry. Though she hated fighting with him, at least if Ron were angry with her, there'd be **some** emotion she could work with. She didn't know how to handle this silent, introspective Ron who had taken the place of her witty, fun-loving friend.

Hermione quickly snatched the rolled parchment from the impressively tufted owl and turned toward Ron, a lofty retort to his accusations already forming on her lips. But his expression stopped her cold.

For a moment – a moment only – there'd been a flicker of something in his eyes. When he caught sight of the seal on the scroll in her hands, Ron blanched, and in his eyes she'd seen…desolation? Hopelessness? A moment later, however, he had wiped his face of all expression, and Hermione couldn't be sure she'd seen anything at all.

Utterly dumbfounding her, Ron rose, abandoning over half of his breakfast. "I'm done," he said to his friends. "I've uh…got that Potions homework to do. See you later."

With that, Ron turned and walked out of the dining hall. Hermione immediately turned to Harry, knowing that her mouth was gaping open in astonishment, but unable to wrest control of herself to close it. "Ron, doing homework on a Saturday morning? Long before it's due? After not finishing his breakfast?" she said unbelievingly. "What is going on, here?" she finally demanded. "And don't look at me like you've no idea what I'm talking about, because you're a horrible liar, and I've seen the way you're making excuses for him, and trying to distract me from going after him to find out what's wrong."

Harry, who had just been opening his mouth to make another excuse for Ron, snapped it shut quickly. Hermione was right. He'd been trying all week to keep them apart, knowing how much it pained Ron to be near her since she'd lost the memory of their time together in the forest. But Hermione was anything but a stupid girl, and he wasn't really surprised to learn that she'd caught on to them.

Now he floundered, trying to figure out what he should do. As much as he wished he could just fix this for them, and as much as he privately believed Hermione should know the truth about what happened, it wasn't his place to tell her. Finally, he said lamely, "You know how Professor Snape is. We all have to work twice as hard just to be considered as good as the Slytherins."

Harry knew she could see the falsehood on his face, but there was nothing he could do differently.

Hermione shook her head, knowing that he knew she was aware it was a lie. This was ridiculous. What was going on?!

With determination, Hermione rose from the table, slamming her utensils down and startling Harry. "Where are you going?" he wanted to know.

"After Ron," Hermione said heatedly. "Whatever this is, it's gone on long enough. I'm going to find him and make him tell me why he's been avoiding me."

Harry fumbled to rise, trying too quickly to maneuver his long legs out from under the table. "Hermione…wait," he called, but she didn't. Hair flouncing behind her, Hermione left the dining room with long, purposeful strides.

At least, if she'd been taller her strides would have been long and purposeful. As it was, they were quick and jerky, hence the flouncing.

Nevertheless, Hermione turned a deaf ear on her friend, and quickly mounted the stairs leading up to the Gryffindor tower. With satisfaction, she noted that the uppermost staircase moved away from the landing after she reached the top. Good…that would delay Harry a bit more.

She caught up with Ron just in front of the portrait hole. He'd been about to speak the password and gain admittance to the common room, but Hermione's breathless arrival startled him. To Hermione's dismay, she saw that it also evoked the same reaction in him that she'd been seeing all week. His eyes darted away from her, looking anywhere else, and his expression was carefully neutral.

Deciding that this couldn't really get much worse, Hermione opted to skip all forms of pretense and just dive right in. "What have I done?" she demanded.

She at least had the satisfaction of seeing him react with surprise…he frowned, shaking his head a little as if he didn't understand. "What do you mean?" he asked. "You haven't done anything."

"Then why are you avoiding me?" Hermione wanted to know. "You haven't spoken to me all week, you can't seem to stomach being in the same room with me, and you can barely stand to look at me."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ron said weakly, looking at the spot of floor next to Hermione's shoe.

"You're doing it right now, Ron." Hermione pointed out, unable to hide the hurt his denial was causing in her.

With effort, Ron raised his gaze to meet Hermione's. He trembled a little inside, and tried with everything he had to keep it from showing. Merlin, it was difficult being this close to her, with this secret between them. Difficult not to touch her, to reassure her. Difficult not to confess everything and beg her to love him again.

Ron cleared his throat. "You haven't done anything," he finally said again, unable to say anything else.

Hermione watched him, but her calculation was gone, now. She couldn't figure out what was eating at him, and he wouldn't tell her. All she knew was that it was hurting them both, and damaging their friendship. Feeling that she was losing something, here, without ever having been aware that she possessed it, Hermione said desperately, "Then what's wrong between us?" Seeing the look on his face, she hurried to speak first, "Don't tell me nothing, because I know there is. You've been…off, all week. And God knows it's not the first time you've gone awhile without speaking to me, but usually we at least have an argument first, and I know **why** you don't want to talk to me, and I can feel appropriately sorry or be angry back at you, but…"

Now, Ron was alarmed to see a sheen of tears in her eyes, as she got worked up. Clearly, she was attempting to retain her composure, but he could see how much this was all hurting her. She went on, "But the thing is, you don't even seem to be **angry**, you just don't want to be anywhere near me. And the only thing I can think of is that I did something wrong."

Ron clenched his jaw, closing his eyes against the pain on her face. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't tell her the truth, but he hadn't known **not** telling her would hurt her this way.

He opened his eyes again, looking at her resolutely. There was only one thing he **could** do: tell her why he'd been so 'off'. He also needed to convince her that it had nothing to do with her, because he couldn't stand to see her like this. He also didn't think he could survive another confrontation like this between them.

And so he told her the truth…sort of.

"You're right," he started, "something's been wrong with me this week. But it's not your fault," he said quickly, impressing the absolute truth of that upon her with his clear, blue eyes. He needed her to believe that above everything. "I've just been down. See I…I was…there was someone I was…in love with," he finally managed, unable to look her in the eyes for this part and hoping that she'd interpret it as embarrassment. "Still am, actually," he continued quietly, unable to mask the loss in his voice, "but it's over, and I…I can't get her back. So I've just been..."

Ron trailed off, not knowing how to finish his partial confession. When he could look at her again, he saw that he wouldn't have to. All of the fight had gone out of her; his revelation seemed to have sucked all of the wind out of her sails, and she stood slumped before him, looking numb. "Oh," she said quietly, and now it was she who couldn't meet his eyes.

"I see," Hermione said, but she didn't. She hadn't had any idea that Ron was involved with someone. And she was surprised by how much it hurt, on so many levels.

She was too devastated to ask him who the girl was, and he didn't volunteer the information. They stood there for a long, shattered moment, painfully aware of each other, hurting because of the distance between them. But neither of them could see a way beyond it, now. There was no discernable way back to go back to who they'd been before this moment.

Finally, Ron turned to leave. He **had** to, before he broke down and told her more. Before she could look up at him with the tears he knew were in her eyes, and melt his resolve.

"Mellon," Ron mumbled, and entered the common room when the portrait opened.

Left alone in the corridor, Hermione's eyes quickly overfilled, spilling fat tears down her cheeks. She watched silently as Ron let the portrait close shut behind him without a backward glance. Unable to meet the Fat Lady's sympathetic eyes, Hermione turned on her heel, prepared to flee to…somewhere. Anywhere! She just had to get away.

She didn't get very far, however…she hadn't gone three steps before she ran into Harry, who had finally caught up with her.

Too late, he saw immediately. He hadn't been able to prevent a confrontation, and her stricken expression told him it hadn't gone well at all. He gripped her shoulders, forcing her to stop. "What's wrong?" he asked, needing to know.

Hermione couldn't keep being strong. It was one thing to not let Ron see her cry, when he was the one who was hurting her, but she couldn't keep up her resolve in the face of Harry's concern. She broke down in his arms. "Ron…Ron's in love with someone," she wept. "Some girl."

Harry couldn't have been more surprised. "What?" he asked, befuddled. What had Ron told her?

"That's what he said," Hermione said, her breath hitching in great gasps as she tried to force the words out between the sobs. "He's in love with some girl, but it's over now, and he can't get her back."

Harry was disconcerted by Hermione's obvious distress. Though he knew – from what Ron told him – that Hermione had confessed to loving Ron when they were in the forest together, he'd never really seen a hint of that emotion from her toward their friend before. This was the first evidence he'd seen that proved she really did love him, other than her delirious declaration in the infirmary, and it stunned him a little. "I never knew you felt this strongly about him," he was startled into saying.

Hermione stepped back when he released her, and kept stepping back until her back hit the wall. She stayed there, unable to retreat any further, covering her face with her hands as if she could block out the last five minutes…block out the world. She breathed a huge, shuddering sigh, trying to control herself. "I could never work up the nerve to tell him," she explained, still not looking at him. "You know how Ron is, he's not the most emotionally aware person in the world. At least…I thought he wasn't…"

She stopped when it hit her that maybe she didn't know Ron as well as she'd thought. After all, if he'd been able to progress into a relationship with this other girl, and successfully keep all knowledge of it from his friends…he couldn't possibly be as clueless about feelings and relating them as she'd previously thought. The realization hurt nearly as much as the idea of Ron with someone else, and she battled fresh grief.

"I was afraid of endangering our friendship," she said now, her voice small and pained. "Too afraid to take a chance. And now he's in love with this…this…**girl**, and there's no chance at all for us, anymore. If…if there ever even was…"

She trailed off, the painful self-doubt in her expression bothering Harry. This wasn't right, it couldn't be. How could this be the right way, with Ron miserable because he couldn't have Hermione, and Hermione miserable because she thought Ron didn't want her?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Harry opened his mouth, the truth on the tip of his tongue. But before he could speak, Hermione was suddenly railing at him.

"And I never even knew!" she exploded, her angst transforming into anger in the blink of an eye. "I never suspected…I never had any idea he was in love with someone. And he kept it from me, he never told me."

She whirled back to Harry. "Did you know?" she demanded.

"Um," Harry stalled. He tried quickly to summon an answer that would bring him the least amount of trouble, but the pause was too long, and she guessed the truth.

"You knew, too," she said. "You both kept this from me." Hurt mingled with her newfound rage. She tried to swallow the bitter ball of betrayal that was lodged in her throat.

Now Harry felt like he must defend Ron. After all, he thought his friend was being rather noble about all of this, if a little misguided, and it was hard to watch Hermione be angry at what she perceived to be Ron's betrayal. And Harry's, for that matter. A little annoyed now, despite himself, Harry started, "Hermione, stop. This isn't what you think."

"Oh no?" Hermione asked him hotly. "Then what is it?"

Harry suddenly realized that he was about to break Ron's trust, and shut his mouth. Hermione stared at him, waiting for an answer. When she realized one wasn't forthcoming, she suddenly lost the grip she was trying so hard to maintain on her anger, and slid back into despair.

Harry watched in horror as her face fell, and cursed inwardly when she started crying again. Bloody hell, how was he supposed to keep secrets from her when she was looking all hurt and vulnerable like that? He had no defense against crying girls, for pity's sake. It didn't help that he had already been on the verge of telling her the truth. Now her tears flooded the already crumbling fortress of his resolve, and he gave in.

"Hermione," he started again. "Listen to me. This really **isn't** what you think. I can't believe I'm telling you this…I promised I wouldn't, but this can't be the right way…it's killing you both."

Hermione sniffed miserably. "What are you talking about?"

Harry sighed, committed now. "What I'm saying is yes, Ron was in love with someone. And yes, he still loves her. But it's not just some girl, Hermione…it's you."

Hermione wiped the tears from her face, trembling and angry that Harry was trying to make her feel better through such an untrue statement. "Obviously, you have no idea what you're talking about," she replied. "I just told you that he said he was in a relationship with her, and it's over. Ron and I were never together."

Harry took a deep breath, sending out a silent plea for forgiveness to Ron. "Yes," he said, "you were."

.


	7. Finding Out

At the very least, Harry's declaration distracted Hermione from her grief, for a moment. She shook her head at him impatiently. "That's ridiculous," she said. "I think I'd remember if Ron and I had ever been a couple, Harry. That's not the sort of thing I'd for…"

Her words trailed off as Harry looked at her meaningfully, and it suddenly dawned on her that there was – quite recently – a block of events that she couldn't recall. A patch of time missing from her memory. Her eyes widened as she realized what Harry's look meant…and what he was insinuating.

A shiver passed through her, raising goose bumps on her arms. He didn't…he couldn't mean…

Suddenly desperate to know what he meant, Hermione opened her mouth to question him. "What are you -"

"The corridor outside the Gryffindor common room isn't really the place to be discussing this, Hermione," Harry interrupted, shooting a sideways glance at the Fat Lady, who was unabashedly eavesdropping.

"Oh, don't let me stop you," she said, waving a hand at them as if they should pay her no mind.

Harry rolled his eyes and took Hermione by the arm, leading her away.

………

A short while later, a winded Hermione followed Harry up yet another flight of stairs. "Are we…going where I think we're going?" she panted.

Harry nodded, finally arriving beneath the trapdoor that led to one of his classrooms. He mounted the ladder and pushed the door open, helping Hermione up into the room once he'd stepped off. "It's the only place in the entire school that I can think of where no one's going to possibly come stumbling in on us," he explained.

Hermione stood up, dusting off the front of her robes as she looked around at the Divination classroom, wrinkling her nose. It had been four years since she'd set foot in this room, and she hadn't really missed it…or the arduous journey up from the castle proper. The room was chock full of divination articles…crystal balls, fortune telling cards, a container of tea leaves. The decorations were gaudy and looked like cheap theatrical props to Hermione. Her impatience with the subject – and its professor, Madame Trelawney – had caused her to walk out of a class for the first and only time back in third year.

Harry looked around too, not missing the irony. This was a room from which Professor Trelawney insisted that she could sometimes peer into the future. Now, Harry was going to help Hermione catch a glimpse of her past.

After briefly glancing around the room, Hermione ignored her surroundings in favor of regarding Harry. He could see that she was wavering between skepticism and uncertainty. He knew she was skeptical by nature, being a firm believer in fact, evidence, and what could be scientifically proven. But the intangible hope Harry offered made her uncertain.

"I don't want to misunderstand," Hermione said hesitantly, finally broaching the subject. "Are you saying that…I mean, you're talking about what happened with the Lotus Lepus, aren't you?"

Harry nodded. "I am."

"And," Hermione continued, still probing the waters, "you're saying that in the short amount of time that I can't remember…"

"You told Ron you loved him," Harry finished, finally laying everything on the table.

Hermione blushed. "I…how would you…I mean, I don't think I'd…," she stuttered.

Seeing her inability to believe, Harry started offering what she needed: evidence. "I saw it myself," he told her, stopping her mid-stammer. "After we got you back. We were in the infirmary, and you were nearly unconscious, but you said it. And Ron wasn't surprised; he knew, by that point, because you'd told him earlier."

Hermione's eyes were wide as she listened to Harry describe events that she'd been present for, but had no memory of. Even with his eyewitness account, it was difficult to believe that what he said was true. Because if it **was**, and Ron cared for her too, as Harry claimed, then why had he been avoiding her all week?

"And Ron told me, while we waited for Madame Pomfrey to mix up the antidote," Harry went on. "He said that you were afraid to die without ever having told him the truth, and so you told him you love him. Just like when you told me."

This last sentence snapped Hermione out of the trance she'd been in while listening to this new version of history. "When I told you what?"

Now it was Harry's turn to blush. "When you told me…oh, you don't remember that either, do you?" Harry realized. When Hermione only arched an eyebrow at him expectantly, he cleared his throat, understanding a little better, now, why Ron had chosen to keep the truth from her. It was ruddy hard to tell someone that something emotional had happened between you when they couldn't remember a word of it.

"Uh, after you were bitten, and we realized you were poisoned, I said I'd come back to get the antidote," Harry said, feeling his face burn. When Hermione nodded to show that she knew this part, he continued. "And…well, you could tell that I was feeling bad about it…having gotten you bitten and all…and I think you were afraid that by the time I got back you'd already be…"

Harry paused, surprised at how quickly the anxiety and guilt had come back to swamp him, just from remembering the moment in the woods when they'd shared that look, both of them thinking that they might not ever see each other again.

Hermione's face softened. She might not be able to remember, but she could imagine what Harry must have felt, worried that he wouldn't be fast enough to save her. And suddenly she realized what she would have told him, then…what she would have wanted him to know, if she were to never see him again.

Observing the distress on his face now as he recounted it, Hermione touched his arm, stopping him. "It's all right," she said. "I…I know what I would have said."

Harry nearly collapsed with relief. Blimey, he was no good with this touchy-feely stuff. Still, something in his heart loosened when he realized she **did** know, and that she'd meant it.

He straightened, clearing his throat again. "Right," he said. "So…knowing that -"

"I would have told him," Hermione realized, seeing it in her mind. "You're right…I would have."

She looked up now, the faintest shadow of a smile hovering on her parted lips. "I told him?" she asked, a bit breathlessly.

When Harry nodded, Hermione exhaled sharply, her stomach suddenly tied up in knots. "And you said he…he feels the same way?"

Harry nodded again, and Hermione's smile bloomed into one of wonder. "He loves me," she said ecstatically, and everything was immediately all right again. There **was** no other girl he loved. He **did** have the relationship skills of a mushroom! She **did** know him! "Well why didn't he just tell me so?!" she demanded, turning away, obviously intending to go hunt Ron down again.

Harry reached out, hooking her elbow. "Because it's more complicated than that," he said.

When Hermione questioningly turned back to face him, Harry went red again, releasing her. Oi, this was the really hard part. But he knew he couldn't just send her back to Ron with only half the story; that would be a recipe for disaster.

"You see," he started nervously, "there…uh… Well, a little more went on than just…talk."

Hermione blinked. Someone had left their textbook on the table at the front of the room, and Harry was fidgeting with it, lifting the cover, letting it fall, lifting it again. He seemed very fixated on it, and Hermione found that it was suddenly easier to watch him fiddle with the book than it was to stand there and wait for him to say what she suspected he was about to say. "How…much more?" Hermione asked, not looking at him.

Harry didn't notice that she wasn't looking at him, because he was still staring determinedly at the book as if it were the most fascinating object he'd ever encountered. "Um, quite a bit more," he said. Lift…fall. Lift…fall. "Pretty much all the more you could get, actually," he clarified. He felt that he'd be able to support his own solar system before long, what with all of the heat his head was radiating.

Hermione, on the other hand, had paled. Her heart was pounding, and all she could hear in the sudden silence of the room was the thunder of her pulse in her ears. After several long moments, she started to get dizzy, and realized she hadn't taken a breath since Harry's awkward revelation.

She inhaled now…a great, ragged breath. It helped bring her back to herself. She looked at Harry, who was watching her now, from the corner of his eye. "We…?"

Harry bit his lip, but maintained eye contact and nodded. In the face of her obvious shock, he felt like he should say something more. "Ron was afraid you'd…regret it or something. And then the antidote took your memory away entirely, and…well…"

Hermione couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe that something so monumental had happened, and she couldn't even remember it. She couldn't believe Ron hadn't told her. And most of all, she couldn't imagine how painful this past week must have been for him. The utter tragedy of the entire sequence of events struck her then, bringing stinging tears to her eyes.

Harry misinterpreted them. "M-maybe I shouldn't have said anything," he stammered. "I promised I wouldn't…"

Hermione shook her head, interrupting him. When she could speak again, she said, "No. I'm glad you did. I needed to know. God, this must have been so hard on him."

Relieved that she wasn't upset with him, Harry asked, "But now you can go find him, right? And tell him you know?"

Hermione frowned. "I know, but I still don't **remember**," she clarified. "Even if Ron and I got together now, he'd still remember everything I can't, and that would be…difficult. For both of us."

"Well, but what can you do about it?" Harry said. "It was either let you die, or cure you and erase your memories. There was no choice." He stopped, taking in her expression. Familiar with the pensive, calculating expression on her face, he grew suspicious. "Hermione," he said slowly, "what are you thinking?"

Hermione chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I'm thinking," she said finally, "that we need to do some homework. Come on."

………

The library was deserted. Considering that it was a Saturday afternoon, Harry wasn't surprised. Still, habit had them speaking only in whispers as he followed Hermione back into the stacks.

She led him confidently to a long aisle back near the restricted section. "Are we going in there?" Harry asked, alarmed. Not that he'd never been in the restricted section before, but his previous journey had been under the cover of night, and his invisibility cloak. He knew Hermione was determined, but he couldn't believe she'd just march right into the most forbidden area of the library in broad daylight.

"Of course not," Hermione said, relieving him of his worry. "What we need is right here."

She reached up high, prying a thick, dusty volume from its place on the shelf and pulling it down. Harry wondered briefly if the book shouldn't have been in the restricted section after all, because once she had it, Hermione held it briefly to her chest and looked around nervously, as if afraid they'd be caught with something they shouldn't have.

Intrigued despite himself, Harry followed her to one of the window-lit, secluded alcoves. Each was recessed into the wall, affording the users some privacy, and contained a table with two chairs. Hermione deposited the book on the tabletop, and opened its cover. Harry took a seat next to her as she eagerly scanned the table of contents.

When Hermione found the chapter she sought and began flipping through the pages, Harry's curiosity got the better of him and he reached out to lift the cover from the table top enough to read the title: "_The Healing Wizard's Complete Guide to Potions, Poultices, Antidotes and Magical Vaccines._"

Harry started to get that suspicious feeling again. "Hermione," he started.

"See, the problem was the antidote," she interrupted, finding the page she wanted. She began to read from the book; her lips silently mouthed the words as she traced her place from line to line with a finger.

"Without the antidote, you would have died," Harry countered.

"Let me rephrase," Hermione said, not looking up. "The problem was the particular antidote Madame Pomfrey used. I remember that Hagrid's book mentioned **several** cures for the poison of the Lotus Lepus. Surely amnesia isn't a side effect of them all."

"It isn't," Harry said, "but the Excido Remedy is the only one that's one hundred percent effective."

Hermione blinked and looked up at him, appearing impressed. "How did you know that?"

Absurdly pleased that he knew something Hermione hadn't, Harry was vague with his answer. "Oh, I just…picked it up somewhere."

"Well then," Hermione said, burying her nose again in the book, "did you also pick up the fact that the second-most commonly used antidote is ninety two percent effective?"

"No," Harry had to admit, "I didn't." But he found himself interested in learning more about it. "Ninety two, eh? That's not too bad."

"No," Hermione agreed, reading on. "And when it works, there are no side effects at all; no memory loss. However, it has absolutely no effect on eight percent of the people who drink it."

Harry frowned, remembering Madame Pomfrey's automatic refusal to use either of the other two antidotes. "But then why isn't it ever used instead of the Excido Remedy? I'd think people would be willing to consider an alternative to memory loss."

"Oh," Hermione said, making a face. She nudged the open book over a little, so Harry could see the illustration.

"Oh," Harry echoed, grimacing. "Ugh."

"Hm," Hermione said, pulling the book back in front of her. She read the caption. "Apparently that's very rare."

"Still," Harry said, looking a bit green, "now I understand why Madame Pomfrey never considered using it. What's that one called?"

"The Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni Essence Antidote," Hermione read. "It doesn't quite trip off the tongue as fluidly as 'Excido', does it?" She wrinkled her nose delicately. "The 'essence' – and I don't even want to know what part – is from the so-called 'colossal squid', which was first discovered in nineteen twenty five."

"Oh," Harry said, "well that explains the picture."

Hermione continued reading. "Actually, all three of the remedies have similar ingredients, and…oh, that's interesting."

"What is?"

"More on why they're never used," Hermione answered. Then she read directly from the page: "But perhaps one of the biggest reasons the Excido Remedy is exclusively used as the antidote to the poison of the Lotus Lepus, is because it is the least dangerous. The Mesonychote – ahem, yes, that one…and the Phlogiston Cure are both less effective. In addition, victims who have ingested the Phlogiston Cure can never again take the Excido Remedy."

"Why not?" Harry wanted to know.

"It's the ingredients," Hermione said, her brow furrowed in concentration. "They react to each other, and all of them have long lasting, permanent effects upon the person ingesting them. The Excido is the mildest, and as long as you take it first, you could conceivably take all three remedies in a row. But if you try to take it **after** ingesting the Phlogiston…"

"Yes?" Harry asked.

"You'll die," Hermione replied, turning the page. "So that's why healers always give the Excido Remedy. It's the only one that always works, and they don't have to worry about any kind of reaction. The other two antidotes appear as remedies only because they pre-date the Excido. They're never used for it anymore."

Harry pulled the book over to him as Hermione sat there chewing on her lip, looking off at nothing in particular as she mulled it all over. He stared uncomprehendingly at the unfamiliar words in front of him for a moment before he realized he was looking at the ingredients for the third antidote. The one Hermione hadn't detailed. As Harry scanned the page, he learned that it was the most unstable of all of the antidotes. It only worked about half the time, and even then it wreaked absolute havoc on the victim's nervous and respiratory systems while simultaneously 'burning' the poison out of the victim's bloodstream through a high fever.

Harry watched with growing horror as the victim in the illustration writhed in agony on a hospital bed. The man appeared to have no control over his limbs as he jerked in spasmodic response to the pain he felt, and he gasped as if he couldn't get enough air. On the edges of the picture Harry could see nurses fluttering around, but whatever they were doing wasn't fast enough to save him. The dying man shuddered one final time, and then was still.

With a feeling of foreboding, Harry slowly looked up at his friend. "Hermione, why are we researching antidotes to a poison you've already been cured of?"

When Hermione only looked back at him carefully and said nothing, Harry reached out and grabbed her arm. "I know where you're going with this, and I don't like it."

Hermione patted the hand on her arm. "It's only research," she reassured him. "What I **really** want to know more about is the poison itself. But the only book I've found that covers it is in Hagrid's private collection. Remember? I returned it to him before we went off looking for the Lotus Lepus that day."

__

Good, Harry thought to himself. He suddenly didn't want her to find out any more about the Lotus Lepus, it's poison, or antidotes that were nearly as dangerous. "So there's only one thing you can do," he said, thinking that now she would go and tell Ron she knew the truth.

"Right," Hermione said, with an enthusiastic nod. "We'll go and see Hagrid."

………

Though it was still bitterly cold outside, the snow had melted with a mid-week bout of sunshine, and they had a much easier time of getting down to Hagrid's hut than they had the previous Saturday before. Harry followed along behind Hermione, nearly dreading the visit with Hagrid because he was worried about what Hermione might learn from him.

Inside, Harry gave Fang a quick scratch behind his ears and perched on the edge of the sofa, watching Hermione warily.

For her part, Hermione graciously accepted Hagrid's offer of tea, and sat at his table as if she hadn't a care in the world. For all his anxiety over her motives, Harry couldn't help but admire how composed Hermione was. She projected a calm, nonchalant façade, when he knew underneath she was trembling with anticipation.

" – never would 'ave forgiven myself if we hadn't a' gotten to ya in time," Hagrid was saying. The half-giant was practically wringing his hands in distress over his own perceived accountability in Hermione's poisoning. "It was wrong 'a me to send you three out there after the Lotus Lepus alone," he declared.

Hermione took a sip of her tea for appearances' sake. "It's not your fault, Hagrid," she said.

"No," Harry piped in, "it's mine. She never would have been in danger at all if I'd bothered to pay attention when she was trying to tell me about the poison." He looked at Hermione grimly. "I've learned that lesson, at least."

"It's no one's fault!" Hermione said forcefully. "If anyone's to blame, it should be the author of that book you lent me, Hagrid. I read it cover to cover, and there was no mention of the disruptive field around a Lotus Lepus that prevents people from apparating. I've half a mind to write to the author and tell him how derelict he was in his duty to accurately inform the readers.

"But anyway," Hermione said, setting her tea aside and re-focusing, "I was wondering if I might get a little more information about the Lotus Lepus. There are no books about it in the Hogwarts library, and the one I've already read is obviously woefully inferior. But then I realized that no one would know more about it than the Care for Magical Creatures professor!"

Harry could have sworn that Hagrid nearly blushed from the flattery. He puffed up a little, increasing his already hefty frame. "Well…ahem…well, what is it you wanted ta' know?" Hagrid asked.

Hermione primly folded her hands in her lap. "Well," she answered, "as someone who's experienced it first hand, I'm curious about the poison itself, and the Excido Remedy in particular. For instance, how does the antidote counteract the poison?"

Hagrid settled into a protesting chair and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Well, the Excido's an inhibitor, yer know."

Hermione put on an expression of polite inquiry. "An inhibitor?"

Hagrid nodded, and took a long sip of tea from a cup that looked quite tiny in his massive hand. "You see, all three a' the antidotes ta' the poison a' the Lotus Lepus have different ways a' stoppin' it. One burns it out a' you. That one's not much fun, I've heard. Another one…the squid one nobody can pronounce…eliminates the poison by consumin' it. What's different about the Excido Remedy is that it doesn't actually get rid of the poison."

Drawn in despite himself, Harry asked, "What do you mean? You mean the poison's still there, inside her?"

"Yep," Hagrid nodded, "it's still in there. Now, yer probably envisionin' great masses of liquidy poison just floatin' around in 'er blood stream, but you've got ter remember it t'was just a small, minute amount of poison that was injected with the bite. And the Excido Remedy just sort of…well, negates its effects."

Now he looked at Hermione. "So really, you've got both the poison and the antidote in ya' at all times. But there's nothin' ta' fear, because they counteract each other, ya' see? They cancel each other out, and so it's like you've got neither."

"That's fascinating," Hermione said, and Harry could see the excitement now beneath her unruffled exterior. "Now, you said that it's an inhibitor…is that what it does to the memories, too? Or are they…are they destroyed?"

Harry must have been the only one to catch the slight, fearful pause when Hermione spoke of her memories being erased, because Hagrid replied immediately. "Oh, aye, they're still in there, too. It's just that while the Excido's in equal er' greater ratio ta' the poison, you can't get at 'em.

"But when ya' consider the awful things that can happen ta' you with the other two antidotes, a few missin' hours isn't really such a bad thing, now, is it?"

"No," Hermione said faintly, hardly aware of what she was saying. "Not at all."

They stayed a few minutes longer before leaving, with Hermione gradually turning the conversation toward more trivial matters. Harry was sure her expert handing of the discussion was to assuage any suspicions she might have raised with her questions…much like throwing sand over your tracks to keep anyone from knowing which way you've gone.

Outside, Hermione's composure slipped, cracking open to reveal her fervor over what they'd learned. She grabbed Harry's arm and dragged him away, heading back toward Hogwarts. "Did you hear that?" she said excitedly. "The memories **haven't** been erased; they're still there!"

Apprehension gripped Harry in its tight claws. "I have a sinking feeling I know where you're going with all of this, Hermione," Harry said darkly, "and I'm totally against it. It's too bloody risky."

Hermione, however, saw a clear path, now. Her goal was a bright, shining star, and all she had to do was set a course and follow it.

"I can get my memories back, Harry," she said breathlessly. She stopped and looked up at him. Her hair was frizzy and out of control, and her eyes were sparkling with an excited, youthful vitality. Harry couldn't help noticing how alive she looked in that moment, and felt a chill of premonition shiver through him. Hermione didn't seem to notice. She went on, and while what she said sparked dread in him, it came as no surprise.

"All I have to do is get poisoned again."

.


	8. Moments of Truth

"This is madness," Harry said.

The young wizard raked a hand through his already messy hair and continued pacing restlessly in front of the desk at which Hermione was working.

"Yes, you've told me so four times in the past ten minutes," Hermione said with a little exasperation. Her sarcasm was due in equal parts to Harry's persistence in doomsaying, her impatience to regain her memories, and the stifling heat in the Potions classroom. Some prankster must have performed a spell that would leave the room baking like an oven over the weekend, intending for it to be an unpleasant surprise for Professor Snape on Monday morning. She and Harry had set up their base of operations here nearly an hour ago (the only other place they'd have access to all of the ingredients they needed was the infirmary, but Madame Pomfrey's presence there ruled that option out), and they were both already soaking with perspiration. Now, Hermione took a break from her creation long enough to scoop her long, thick hair up off her neck and secure it quickly into a messy bun near the top of her head, where it rested in a little ball of heat against her scalp.

Marginally cooler, Hermione grasped a test tube containing a dull, brown liquid and measured a small amount of it out. She added the measurement to one of the two beakers at the center of the table. One was the base for the Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni Essence Antidote; the other was the base for the Excido Remedy, which Hermione had decided would be wise to have on hand in case things didn't go as well as she hoped.

"Well it is!" Harry insisted. "I can't believe I'm still here watching you do this. I can't believe you're seriously considering **fatally poisoning** yourself so you can get a memory back!"

Now Hermione pinned him with a look. "Well it's a pretty important memory, don't you think? Besides, you're getting all upset over nothing." She indicated the potion she was currently mixing. "The Mesony…Mesonychoto…oh, **you** know what I mean, is perfectly safe – "

"Yeah, except for the point zero zero zero three percent of the population it turns into a weird, squishy hybrid squid thing," Harry interjected.

Hermione went on as if she hadn't heard him, " – and if worse comes to worse, and it doesn't work, well… If that happens I can always take the Excido Remedy again. I have to at least try it, Harry. It's too important not to."

Harry didn't like this plan. He **really** didn't like it. He had visions of trying to haul a transformed Hermione up to the hospital wing, with her many tentacles waving wildly. He thought furiously, trying to find a way to make her see reason.

"How can you do this to Ron?" he rounded on her. "I don't think he'd want you taking this risk, Hermione. After everything he went through to save your life…what if the worst happens? Or what if it doesn't work, and he's got to stand by and watch you lose your memory all over again when you have to take the Excido Remedy? Do you really want to put him through that again?"

Now he had Hermione's attention. "No," she said resolutely. "I don't want him hurt. And that's why we're not going to tell him."

Harry squinched his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You two are killing me, you know, with your 'We can't tell Hermione' this, and your 'We're not going to tell Ron' that."

Now Hermione looked at him sympathetically. "I know we've both put you through the wringer this past week, Harry, and I'm sorry. I wish there was another way, but there isn't, and I can't do this on my own. Once the potions are ready except for the last ingredients, we can go back down to Hagrid's under your invisibility cloak, and let the Lotus Lepus bite me. I wish we could have just brought it back up with us, and do it all right here to save time, but we don't have a cage. Plus, I don't want to put **you** in any danger through prolonged exposure, so it's safer to just go down than to try and transport it anywhere.

"Anyway, the poison takes effect nearly instantaneously, and I'll have a hard time staying upright. I'll need your help getting back up here to take the antidote."

Harry shook his head disbelievingly. "Do you **hear** yourself?" he wanted to know.

"I can't do it without you, Harry," Hermione said gravely. "You're in a position to stop me, but I'm asking you not to."

Now she asked him earnestly, "Don't you see? If this works, it would solve everything!"

"**If** it works," Harry pointed out. When Hermione only gazed back at him hopefully, he sighed hugely and gave in. "I can't believe I'm going to help you do this."

Hermione beamed at him, so happy that she came from around the desk and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Harry. I mean it. This means so much to me."

"Don't thank me," Harry said crossly, as he half-heartedly hugged her back. "I'm an idiot for letting you talk me into this. If you turn into a colossal squid, Ron's going to kill me."

………

Using the invisibility cloak that he'd inherited from his father wasn't quite the thrilling adventure it once was. For one thing, every time he used it he seemed to be taller, and he spent the whole time hunched over enough so that his disembodied feet weren't visible to anyone he might pass. It was too physically uncomfortable an experience now to be really enjoyable.

In addition, he'd donned the cloak this time pretty much against his better judgement. He still felt that this plan of Hermione's was extreme, but once she became fixated on something there was no talking her out of it, as he and Ron both knew from vast personal experience. It was better that he go along to try and keep her from getting into even more trouble than she had planned for herself.

The vague thought that many of his previous exploits with the invisibility cloak had **also** been for less than wise pursuits crossed his mind, but since those were all things **he'd** needed to do, he was unable to examine the comparison objectively and so settled his mind by discarding it.

And so it was that Harry found himself making the journey to Hagrid's hut for the second time that day. This time he made it in a painful stoop; the scarcity of coverage the cloak provided forcing him to shuffle along directly behind Hermione, running into her frequently. The jostling caused him a bit of consternation, as it was much harder to ignore the fact that Hermione was a pretty, shapely girl when her body kept bumping into his. Of course, he didn't feel that way about her emotionally - she was one of his best friends! - but he was still a member of the male gender, for Merlin's sake.

Still…Harry thought it would probably be a good idea to tally this one up under the "Things we're not telling Ron" category.

Glad that she couldn't see his embarrassed flush, Harry gritted his teeth and forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand…namely, Hermione's act of raving lunacy.

Hoping to avoid contact with Hagrid all together – she felt quite guilty for the way she'd manipulated information out of him earlier – Hermione led Harry around the hut toward the area Hagrid called his 'back yard'.

Since his hut stood at the termination of a clearing that gave way to the Forbidden Forest, Harry thought that Hagrid might consider the woods part of his 'back yard', too. Fortunately for them, however, he and Hermione wouldn't have to brave the thick wood. They found what they needed in a large pen that was nestled right up against the rear of Hagrid's house.

The Lotus Lepus sat very still on its haunches, ears swiveling delicately toward the sound of their approach. Unlike humans, and other creatures that spent more time as predators than prey, hares have wide-set, nearly opposite-facing eyes. Evolution had designed this feature to allow them (and quite a few other species) to be able to see danger coming from both the left and the right. When it could spot no movement at all in its impressively wide field of vision, the Lotus Lepus seemed to relax.

Unseen, Harry and Hermione were able to creep directly up to the side of the pen. Now that they were moments away from carrying out Hermione's plan, Harry's second thoughts were getting the best of him. "I can't believe you're actually going through with this," he hissed, shaking his head. "I can't believe I'm letting you."

"Relax," she whispered back, "it'll all be over, soon." Quickly, before Harry could change his mind, Hermione snaked a hand out from beneath the cloak and reached into the cage.

The sudden appearance of Hermione's hand out of thin air startled the Lotus Lepus, and its reaction was typical of any wild creature: it bit her.

Hermione gasped, instinctively yanking her hand back. But her mission had been accomplished. She didn't need to see the two fresh puncture wounds on her forefinger to know the Lotus Lepus had injected its poison into her bloodstream…she was already feeling sleepy.

She sagged. Cursing, Harry wrapped an arm around her waist to support her. He frantically draped the cloak so that it fell seamlessly around them, again, and turned back toward the school. Now that it was done, he felt an overwhelming sense of urgency to get back and get the antidote into her before she succumbed to the poison.

Hermione yawned, and tried to keep up with Harry. It was difficult to think past the sudden bank of fog wrapped around her brain, but she struggled to remain focused on the objective, and get back to the Potions classroom.

The trek back from Hagrid's hut was long and arduous, and took an eternity. Hermione simply couldn't move very fast when she was battling sleep with every step. She walked as if intoxicated, weaving drunkenly back and forth. Harry had his hands full keeping her going in the right direction, and realized she hadn't been kidding when she'd told him she couldn't do it on her own. He spared a moment to be thankful she was too smart to try it without help.

Finally, they made it back to Hogwarts. They passed only a few students in the corridors…luckily, the Potions classroom was not in one of the more heavily trafficked areas.

It seemed to Harry as if ages had passed since they'd left the classroom, but he was surprised to discover it had really been less than an hour. The room was still empty, still hot, and the potions remained undisturbed on the table in front.

Harry lurched with Hermione into the classroom, attempting to close the door with his foot. After a moment of fumbling, however, he cursed again and gave up. Leaving it open a crack, he stumbled forward with Hermione, finally able to let the invisibility cloak slip off of them.

Feeling as if her legs were made of putty, Hermione was grateful when Harry dumped her into the chair before the table that held the potions. Either the repeat exposure of the poison was effecting her more quickly this time, or Harry just wasn't as wonderfully distracting as Ron had been.

Wait a minute…as distracting as….

When Harry bent to assess her status, he was startled to see that her cheeks were wet. Worriedly, he wondered if she was regretting her impulsive actions. Damn it, he knew he should have tried harder to talk her out of it!

"Hermione?" he asked.

But when she looked up at him, her eyes were full of wonder, as well as tears. "Harry," she breathed, a tremulous smile quivering on her lips. "Oh, Harry. I remember!"

Despite his anxiety, Harry couldn't resist returning Hermione's wide, joyous smile. She was completely transformed. While it was clear that sleep still tugged at her, she looked as if she could defeat the poison in her blood through sheer happiness. There was a light in her eyes that Harry had never seen before. When she closed them tightly, concentrating intently on the memories that came trickling back to her, more tears slid down her cheeks. "Oh, Ron," she whispered, remembering.

"This has got to work," she said, opening her eyes again and focusing on Harry. "It's got to."

"Right," Harry said, moving to the potions on the table. He indicated the beaker containing the dull, brown liquid. "This is the squid one, right?"

Hermione's smile dimmed a little, nervously. "Let's not call it that right now, what do you say?"

Harry admired her ability to joke in the face of the risk she was about to take. His own nerves were on a razor edge. He glanced at the stock of ingredients still left from what she'd gathered. "All right," he said, ready to start mixing, "which one's s the last ingredient?"

Hermione battled a yawn and pointed to a test tube containing a black substance that looked like ink, to Harry. "It's pre-measured," she managed, and he nodded, dumping it in. He mixed it quickly with a glass wand stirrer.

The potion began to bubble and hiss as the chemical reaction took place. Within a few moments it had turned frothy, and was emitting a faint, fishy odor. Hermione indicated that it was all right to lift.

Finding the glass of the beaker a little warm to the touch, Harry picked it up and brought it to Hermione. He knelt before her, offering her the potion and – for whatever it was worth – his support.

Hermione took it gravely, peering into the depths of the brew as if hoping to see there the outcome of drinking it. Finding nothing but foam and bubbles, she resolutely brought the glass to her lips anyway.

She shared a brief, nervous look with Harry, and then downed the noxious-tasting liquid.

Harry assumed it was noxious, anyway, from the face she made when it reached her tongue. She didn't let it stop her, though, and he watched with mild fascination as she chugged the entire contents of the beaker. When the last, gritty drop had been consumed, she uttered an inarticulate cry of disgust and flung the beaker down, smashing it upon the stone floor of the classroom. Harry might've laughed at her extreme reaction if he weren't so jumpy with anticipation.

He watched her closely, unsure of what would indicate a good reaction to the potion. Tentacles would be a bad sign, he knew, but thankfully he didn't see any yet. So far, at least, Hermione was beak and suction cup free.

She sat motionless in the chair, seeming to wait for some sort of response from her own body. The level of her concentration was a tangible thing; Harry could **feel** her silently urging the potion to work. She hovered, tormented, over the line between ecstasy and despair. The tension oppressed them, smothering them. Finally, there was movement.

She yawned.

As if she could take it back, or at least deny the irrefutable truth by keeping another yawn from escaping, Hermione's hands flew to her mouth in horror. "No!" she cried, "no…it isn't fair!" Her eyes filled again with tears, and she jumped up, racing to the table.

Harry followed her, fretting. Naturally he was very sorry it hadn't worked; he'd hoped for everyone's sake that it would. But now, with Hermione gripped by desperation, he worried about what she might do. As far as he was concerned, the most important thing now was to make certain she took the Excido Remedy immediately. It was the only option she had left. It was undeniably tragic that she would have to lose her memories again, but Harry's priority had to be Hermione's **life**. To his way of thinking, this was what Hermione had truly enlisted him for…to look out for her best interests and keep her safe, even if he had to go against her wishes to do so.

And so he dogged her steps as she returned to the table. He watched carefully as she frantically sorted through the ingredients. "I must have made a mistake," she said, crying. "I…I didn't measure the Essence correctly, or…or the delay was too long before we added it, and it lost potency, or…"

"Hermione," Harry interrupted. He tried to keep his voice gentle, out of sympathy for her situation, but he couldn't quite mask the urgency. "You didn't do anything wrong. I watched you and double checked everything, remember?" Here he indicated the open book Hermione had brought with them from the library, and to his dismay she turned to it immediately, frantically flipping through the pages, apparently still hoping she'd missed something.

"You followed the instructions exactly," he tried again. When she didn't respond he grasped her shoulders, turning her to face him. "You did everything you could, Hermione. But it's over, now. It didn't work…you must just be one of the eight percent it doesn't work for."

"No!" Hermione shouted, trying to pull away from him. Trying to deny his words. "We can't have gone through all of this for nothing! There's got to be another way."

Harry shook her a little. "There **is** no other way, Hermione. You're still poisoned. You've got to take the Excido now, quickly."

To his relief, she stopped struggling and slumped a little at the reminder. He hated to see the utter loss of hope on her face, but he was too glad that he'd finally gotten through to her to wonder at the suddenness of her transformation. "Come on," he said gently, "sit down. I'll add the last ingredient and bring you the potion."

Without another word of protest, Hermione let him lead her back to the chair. She sat numbly, and her quiet suffering broke Harry's heart. He tried to ease it as he turned back to the table. "I know how awful this is for you," he said, picking up the last ingredient for the Excido Remedy and adding it to the potion. "But if it's any consolation at all, I swear I'll never tell him. Ron doesn't ever have to know you remembered. It won't be the ideal situation, but at least he won't have to know he **almost** had a chance to get everything back. And maybe…maybe some day, after it doesn't hurt as much, he'll be able to tell you what happened in the woods himself."

He watched as the potion turned a bright green, and began to fizz. He remembered from when Madame Pomfrey prepared it in the infirmary that this reaction meant it was ready. He picked up the beaker, turned back toward his silent friend, and stopped cold.

Hermione was standing again. Her eyes were apologetic, but determined. And she was pointing her wand at him.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said sincerely. "But you're better at Defense than I am, and I knew my only chance was to take you by surprise."

Harry didn't understand. The image of Hermione standing there, tired but resolute, pointing her wand at him was completely baffling. "What are you doing?" he said, dumbfounded. "I don't know how much time you have left. You've got to drink this."

Hermione shook her head slowly, never taking her eyes off him. "I'm sorry, I can't do that."

"What do you mean, you can't do it?" Harry demanded. "You've got no bloody choice!"

"You're wrong," Hermione said, her eyes flicking quickly toward "_The Healing Wizard's Complete Guide to Potions, Poultices, Antidotes and Magical Vaccines_", which was still resting open on the table beside him. "I've got one choice left."

Harry looked down to see the last page Hermione had flipped to before allowing him to lead her away. And just before he realized what he was looking at, he remembered thinking that she flipped so frantically through the pages because she thought she'd missed something. She hadn't. She'd been looking for another way, and now he knew. He just knew.

"Hermione, you can't!" he cried. "Are you out of your mind? Didn't you see the illustration?"

"Yes, I can," she answered calmly. "No, I'm not. And yes, I did. My choice, Harry."

"You can't be serious."

Hermione's expression was wry. "I'm deadly serious."

"Are you mad? The Phlogiston Cure only works about half the time! And even if it **doesn't** kill you, if it doesn't work you're dead anyway, because you won't be able to take the Excido Remedy again."

"I'm fully aware of the possible outcome, Harry," Hermione said as gently as possible. "Please believe that if I had any other choice, I wouldn't do this. But now that I've remembered…I can't voluntarily give up my memories again. I've got to exhaust my options."

When Harry looked as if he might make a move for his own wand, Hermione spoke quickly. "You almost had me convinced, you know. I think if you hadn't mentioned Ron, I would have gone ahead and taken the potion. I'm not stupid, Harry, and I don't want to die. But when you started talking about how he would never know that I remembered…and how **someday**, maybe when it didn't **hurt** so much, maybe we could still have a chance together…that's when I realized I wasn't willing to place my faith in a maybe."

"It's not worth your life," Harry declared.

Hermione never wavered. "It's worth a chance," she replied. "Now," she continued, "as you've said yourself, I'm rather low on time, at present, and I'll need much of what I've got left to mix up the Phlogiston Cure. And I'm afraid I can't do that with you in here, Harry. I know you too well…you'll try to stop me, and I can't allow it."

When Harry took a step toward her, Hermione raised her wand higher, thrusting the point at him threateningly. "I mean it, Harry! Merlin knows I never imagined I'd be pointing a wand at you, and I'm not happy about it, but I **will** have to stop you if you make a move."

Harry halted. He couldn't believe this was happening. He couldn't believe Hermione had gotten the drop on him. He couldn't believe what she was about to do. This was Hermione! Intelligent, reasonable, practical Hermione. His friend.

"You're bluffing," Harry said. "I know you wouldn't hurt me, Hermione."

The problem with that statement was that there were plenty of spells she could cast that **wouldn't** hurt him…just immobilize him. And they both knew it.

Hermione seemed to be reading his mind. When she looked at him, her expression was knowing. "You're right: I wouldn't hurt you. And…I meant what I said in the forest, Harry," she said, startling him. "I need you to remember that. And if this doesn't work, I need you to…I'll need you to tell Ron that I love him."

Harry stared at her helplessly. He couldn't make a move to stop her, or she'd take him down. But he knew if he didn't go for it, she'd herd him out of the room, lock the door, and take the Phlogiston Cure anyway. He had to at least try.

"I will," he said, and sprang.

Hermione was tired; the poison of the Lotus Lepus was trying to drag her under at every moment. And she was emotional; tears blurred her eyes, and the wand shook slightly in her trembling hand. On top of her fear over the risk she was about to take and the fear of losing Ron, she was also feeling quite guilty for holding Harry up at wand-point. Harry was hoping that these factors – in combination with the promise he threw in to surprise her – would be enough to negate the advantage she had over him by already having her wand out.

They weren't.

The next thing Harry knew, the door to the Potions classroom was slamming shut from the inside, and he himself was outside, lying on the floor of the corridor. He could vaguely recall a bright burst of light, and remembered the sound of glass breaking as the Excido Antidote fell to the floor, smashing.

Harry pounded his fist on the cold stone once, furious with himself, and then immediately jumped to his feet. He knew that behind the heavy classroom door Hermione was already mixing up the Phlogiston Cure. Even if he could get in to stop her, she'd still be dying from the poison of the Lotus Lepus. He needed more Excido potion, and quickly. His only chance was to get it, then return to the classroom and make her drink it before it was too late.

There was only one other room in the school that had the ingredients he needed, and Harry set out for the infirmary at a dead run.

………

For the first time in a week, Ron hurried.

Ever since that fateful moment in the infirmary last Saturday, Ron hadn't felt lively enough to hurry anywhere, unless it was to run away from Hermione, and all of the memories she didn't share with him.

He'd been lost in a sea of misery all week, able to dwell only upon what he'd lost. Now, though, he was kicking himself a little for the conversation he'd had with Hermione that afternoon. He hadn't been able to come completely clean with her, and that was one thing…but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why he'd told her he was in love with someone.

It was true, of course, and he supposed he'd been trying to stick as close to the truth as possible, but when he thought about it later he realized how it must have sounded to Hermione. **He** knew she was the one he was talking about, but how was **she** supposed to know that?

She didn't, of course. And when that occurred to him, later, he realized what she must have thought…that he was in love with someone else.

This was where the kicking started. Because he **knew** how she felt about him. Just because she couldn't remember having ever said it, didn't mean she didn't still feel it.

And so, horribly afraid that he'd hurt her, Ron had gone looking for Hermione for the first time since all of this started. He hadn't any idea what he would tell her when he found her…at the very least, the misunderstanding had to be corrected. And as he wandered, he'd begun to wonder if maybe Harry hadn't been right all along…maybe he should have just told Hermione right away. She deserved to know the truth, didn't she?

He was mulling these thoughts over in his mind as he headed toward the library, when he heard someone running down the corridor behind him. And this was no 'I'm late for class, so I'd better hurry' trot…this was a full-out, 'get out of my way!' run. The kind of run that meant something serious.

Curious, Ron turned to see what was going on, and was utterly surprised to see Harry barreling at him, at top speed. The look on his face screamed 'Emergency!', and Ron felt his pace pick up. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He stepped in front of Harry to get his attention.

Harry nearly crashed into him. As it was, he veered off at the last second, trying to go around, and ended up colliding with the wall. He careened off, stumbled a few steps, and nearly fell. It wasn't until Ron caught him that he realized who he'd nearly mown down. "Let me go," he said urgently, gasping for air. "I've got to get to the infirmary."

A wave of premonition washed over Ron. "What is it?" he demanded. "What's wrong?"

Harry clenched his eyes shut. The second-to-last thing he wanted to do in the world right now was put Ron through this, but he couldn't very well keep him out of it, now. There was no way to spare him from knowing, and honestly…he might be able to help. And so he said it.

"It's Hermione. She's in trouble," he panted.

When Harry turned to resume his marathon run to the infirmary, Ron fell in with him immediately. "Is she all right?"

"No," Harry answered truthfully, rounding the corner. "She's dying."

__


	9. The Phlogiston Cure

__

Author's Note: Last chapter, guys, thanks so much for staying with me, and for being such faithful reviewers!

Real quick, though, I just wanted to touch on the Pensieve thing: quite a few people helpfully suggested it as the solution to Hermione's dilemma, but I didn't want to go that way for four reasons. 1) It's bloody obvious, and I hate not being original. 2) A story is more interesting when there's conflict and / or drama…and there wouldn't have been much of either if Hermione just went and solved all of their problems by calmly suggesting the Pensieve to Ron, who would then quite cooperatively agree that it was a smashing idea, pip pip, and then everyone's happy when she can view the whole encounter through his eyes. Sound boring to you? It sure sounds boring to me. 3) As far as I know…there's only one or two Pensieves at Hogwarts. We've seen one (the same one?) in the possession of Dumbledore and then Professor Snape. Neither, I'll wager, are very accessible. 4) When stories come to me, they spring pretty much fully-grown from my head, like Athena. And I usually very quickly become attached to the idea, and am reluctant to change it. So, even though the Pensieve is probably something that could have been worked into the story, I probably would have never incorporated it just because I'm ornery that way. So there's my logic. Thanks to everyone who was only trying to help, though. ;)

Also, Astroeal…couple things. Firstly, I'm sorry, I know it's confusing, but "chapter one" is actually just the title page of the fic, not an actual chapter. So what I'm posting now is chapter 8, even though Fanfiction.net thinks it's chapter 9. Secondly, you suggested that Ron and Hermione fight more, to liven up the fic…well, again, I have my reasons why that's not happening: 1) I've always felt that Ron and Hermione's arguments are a little **overreactionary (heh…if that's not a word, it should be)**. Now, it's been awhile since I was a kid, but I'm pretty sure that I was never that excitable, so I have a hard time writing people being absolute gits to each other for no good reason, and feeling as if I've done a good job with it. 2) One of the reasons they fight all the time, I think many people will agree, is because of the unspoken **thing** between them that they're (and in particular **Ron** is) denying. In "Excido", Ron has admitted his feelings to himself, and only feels the need to fight with her out of habit and for fun, now, as was portrayed in chapter one. 3) With the minor snerking of chapter one and the deliberate provocation on Ron's part in chapter two aside, this is year seven, and one would hope they'd grown up a little by now, yes?

Anyhoo, sorry. See…this is why I don't let myself do Author's Notes, because I ramble. Bah, I'm done.

And now, the conclusion of "Excido":

………

Though he was in dire need of oxygen, Harry used the dash to the infirmary to fill Ron in on the key points.

For his part, Ron never fell behind once, despite the emotional hurdles Harry kept tossing out in front of him.

Hermione knew that she and Ron had gotten together that day in the woods, even though she couldn't remember it. She'd come up with an insane scheme to get bitten by the Lotus Lepus for the second time so that she **could** remember it. Then Harry had actually **helped** her with said insane scheme, and now she remembered. Only the second antidote they'd been counting on to fix everything hadn't worked, and Hermione had refused to take the Excido Remedy because she wouldn't give her memories up again. And now, she was risking everything on a long-shot…an antidote that might kill her itself. And even if it left her alive, if it didn't cure her she was still doomed to fall asleep and die from the poison of the Lotus Lepus, because she could never take the Excido Remedy again.

Ron didn't even know **what** to feel by this point. He'd been shocked to learn that Harry told Hermione the truth. Then he'd been sort of relieved, and tentatively hopeful when he learned that she wanted to remember. Then he was shocked again by Hermione's lunatic plan, and the fact that Harry had actually helped her with it. Since then it had all gone downhill, as things got worse, and he was left now with a sickening mixture of anxious fear and urgency. There was also quite a fair bit of impending despair that he was holding back by sheer force of will, because he couldn't allow himself to hope that she succeeded. He just couldn't. It meant nearly certain death for her, and so he had to do everything in his power to stop her. Everything he could to make her forget all about him, again. But he wouldn't think about it just yet…he couldn't.

And so he just ran, keeping up with Harry.

When they skidded into the infirmary a few minutes later they found it deserted, save for one small boy in one of the beds. Ron recognized him as a Second year Hufflepuff. His name was Robert, or Robin, or some such, and Harry pinned him with an urgent look. "Where's Madame Pomfrey?" he demanded.

Robert or Robin looked back at Harry with wide, awestruck eyes, and managed a squeak in response.

Woefully familiar with the effect Harry sometimes had on people (younger students in particular), Ron rolled his eyes and tried it himself. Maybe the kid would be able to reply if it was just the sidekick, and not **the** Harry Potter asking him the question.

"Look, Robert," he said, hoping he'd chosen correctly, "Help us out, will you? Where's Pomfrey?"

If Robert wasn't the kid's name, he was still too overcome by the presence of the boy who lived to mind being misaddressed, because he didn't correct Ron. "She…she's not here," he answered. "Someone broke into the greenhouses last night and got knocked out by a Prizefighting Spanish Rosebush. Professor Sprout only just found him, and Madame Pomfrey went to help. She said she'd be right back," he added helpfully.

"No good," Harry answered, and pulled Ron into the supply room. He immediately began searching the ingredients on the shelves, still talking. "Hermione's already mixing the Phlogiston Cure, we've no time to prepare this here," he said, picking three bottles out of the lineup and thrusting them at Ron to hold. "We've got to get down there and stop her from drinking it before it's too late. Your job is to get that door open. I'll prepare the Excido Remedy." He grabbed a vial of another liquid and held it clenched in his fist while he searched for an empty container.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Ron asked dubiously.

"I've seen it done twice in the past week," Harry said, discovering an empty beaker in one of the cabinets. "I can do it."

As he and Ron turned to race back down to the dungeons, Harry could only hope it would be enough.

………

The door to the Potions classroom was still forbiddingly shut when they came running up to it, and they could hear nothing from inside.

"Talk to her," Harry urged, crouching on the floor with his supplies. "Try to get her to open the door."

__

Easier said than done, mate, Ron mused. He had no idea what to say. He'd played so many roles this week – friend, boyfriend, lover, back to friend, stranger – he didn't know which to be, now. He didn't know how to talk to whichever version of Hermione it was on the other side of that door.

Harry helped him out by shouting, "Hermione, open the door!"

From within, they heard her distinct reply. "No! I'm not going to change my mind, Harry."

Both boys breathed a sigh of relief. At least she was still awake and alive, in there. "Come on, Hermione," Harry shouted back, keeping her engaged as he set all of his ingredients down, "you know this isn't the way. You're too smart to take this kind of a risk over just a memory."

"Just a memory?!" she screeched back, sounding scandalized. "It's more than that, Harry! It's seven years' worth of friendship. It's over three years' worth of fear and uncertainty of hope. It's the possibility of a future. It's something I need…can't you understand that?"

Ron swallowed the lump in his throat. That despair was back, ominously weighing down the ceiling he'd hastily constructed in his mind to keep it from swooping down and crushing him. Because Merlin, he understood what she meant. He wanted what she wanted. Almost more than anything.

The only thing he wanted more was for her to live.

Clearing his throat, he stepped up to the door. "Hermione?"

There were several beats of stunned silence. Then he heard her tentative reply. "Ron?"

"It's me," he confirmed.

He thought he heard footsteps, and when she spoke again a moment later, his guess was confirmed. She'd come to stand on the other side of the door. It's thick weight was all that divided them now, and yet he felt as if he'd never be able to reach her again. "I'm sorry, Ron," she said. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want you to have to go through this."

"Don't you think I should've been given some kind of say?" he asked, surprised at the hurt that jumped up and bit him when he was reminded of how his two best friends had initiated this plan without consulting him. "Besides," he said, trying to focus, "did you think if you ended up dead, I wouldn't notice, or something?

"I'm not going to end up dead," Hermione said, trying to sound certain. But Ron heard the nerves in her voice. "It's going to work," she claimed, as if trying to convince them both.

Ron rested his forehead against the door and sighed, hearing the clink of glass behind him as Harry continued to frantically mix his potion. "I don't know, 'Mione," he said, uttering a hollow sound that was too depressed to be a laugh. "We haven't had much luck this week."

"Don't go through with this," he pleaded, when she didn't answer him. "The only thing that could possibly hurt worse than you not remembering, is you dying over it. Do you think I could bear it if this thing kills you? Please don't take the chance over a memory."

Perhaps surprised to find herself defending this particular memory from Ron, in addition to Harry, Hermione's voice was small when she spoke next. "Isn't it important to you? That memory?"

Ron closed his eyes. He couldn't lie to her. And he couldn't keep all of the pain of the last week out of his voice when he answered her. "It was the best day of my life," he said truthfully.

"Me too," Hermione said.

He could tell from the thickness in her voice that she was crying. He felt like joining her. The loss of her was already swamping him again, leaving his edges dull, but he tried to get through to her. "Please, 'Mione. I don't want to lose you."

On the other side of the door, Hermione battled exhaustion. One of the reasons she was leaning up against the door that separated her from Ron was because she could scarcely hold herself upright any longer. Now, even though he couldn't see her, she tenderly placed a hand on the door, right around where she thought his heart would be, were there no barrier between them. "I'm sorry, Ron. This is something I have to do," she said.

"Why?"

Hermione closed her eyes, remembering. "Because I don't want to lose you again."

Ron cursed. If he'd hidden his depression better, she would never have caught on that anything had happened. She'd never have known they'd lost each other. "Hermione," he said helplessly, but there was no reply.

Worried now, Ron tried again. "Hermione?"

There was no response from behind the door, and Ron's pulse spiked. "I think she's falling asleep!" he said over his shoulder, panicked.

Suddenly there was a shout of triumph behind him, and he turned to see Harry standing up, holding the Excido Remedy. It fizzed and bubbled a beautiful green in his hands. "Get her out of there," Harry said, "It's ready."

"Hermione," Ron called for the third time, "open the door. Harry's got the potion ready for you."

He was more surprised than anyone when she obeyed. The door swung open, and the next thing he knew, she was falling into his arms.

Harry immediately advanced with the potion, but then he paused. Something was wrong.

Hermione appeared to be in some sort of distress. She clung to Ron, hyperventilating. Her eyes were huge, and she seemed to stare without seeing. Her skin was flushed, and she plucked at his jumper as if trying to climb up, pull herself away from whatever it was that was hurting her.

Ron sank to the floor with her, cradling her in his arms. He brushed her hair back from her face and called her name, peering into her eyes. Her pupils were enormous, he could see. They were dilated so fully that he could see only a thin ring of brown around them.

"What's wrong with her?!" Ron cried.

They were both surprised to hear Hermione's voice in answer. Neither had thought that she was aware of her surroundings. Yet somehow, despite what was happening to her, she found a way to laugh.

It was eerie, broken apart by gasps and shudders. It was more like a death rattle than the fun, quicksilver laugh they were used to. "I'm…quite impressed, Harry," she panted, "that you conjured it correctly…without the directions."

She let her head fall to the side, fixing those sightless eyes on Harry. "But did you really think…that I wouldn't finish mine first?"

Harry let the beaker containing the Excido Remedy fall to the floor, where it smashed on the stone, useless. "She's already ingested hers," he realized, dismayed.

Hermione was burning up, and Ron tried to hold her, to anchor her, as she twitched and jerked in response to the Phlogiston Cure. Her spasms were violent, and she couldn't catch her breath. He tried to touch her, to comfort her, but she couldn't hold still. The Cure was burning her up from the inside, and she couldn't escape it. Little whimpers of pain escaped her lips, and they were the worst part because she was obviously holding most of it back. It was silent, otherwise, save for Ron's futile murmurs that he was there with her, that it would be okay, and Harry thought it was all perhaps the worst combination of sounds he'd ever heard.

On the cold floor, in the bowels of a castle built of stone whose massive weight loomed oppressively over them, Hermione fought for her life, and they could do nothing but watch.

Ron broke, giving in to the hot tears that had been threatening in his eyes. "This is all my fault," he cried, trying to hold her to him. "I should have just told you the truth. We could have started over," he said into her shoulder.

Hermione was once again striving for speech, shaking her head against him. "It's mine," she argued, "…I just…wanted to remember…being with you."

Harry felt tears on his own cheeks as he forced himself to watch her exhibit the same symptoms as the patient in the illustration from the library book. Watching it was one of the most painful things he'd ever done, but he couldn't cheapen what she was going through by turning away.

And so it was that he was looking right at her when she jerkily pulled one arm out of Ron's embrace, and stretched it out to him. He was kneeling right beside them, and when he reached out to take her seeking hand, it wrapped around his at the contact. "Harry," she wheezed, knowing better than anyone that he'd be blaming himself, "don't…don't feel bad. This isn't…your fault."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. He absolutely could not handle her trying to comfort him when she was the one dying. Not trusting himself to speak, he squeezed her hand.

Hermione managed to bring her other hand up from Ron's shoulder so that she could touch his face. She spasmed, but he held on to her. "I…love you," she gasped.

Ron sobbed. "I love you," he whispered back, and then he was pulling her up to him. One hand supported her back; the other he kept at the base of her neck as he embraced her. He felt her own free arm go around his shoulders to hold him tightly. Harry still held her other hand, and they both waited with her for death.

Only…death was taking an awfully long time.

Harry felt the memory of that illustration intruding again, and remembered the way the man had just finally shuddered and died, as if he his body couldn't handle it any longer.

But Hermione, Harry realized in a moment of hope, was slowing down. Ron was still holding on to her as she bucked and twitched, but her spasms were becoming less frequent. Her breathing had evened out, and while her eyes were still fixed open and staring at the ceiling, Harry thought she could actually see it, now. It was like the Phlogiston Cure had sent her body into overdrive, but now it was allowing her to downshift.

With a chill, he realized that that was exactly what it had done. "It's working," Harry breathed.

Ron's head whipped up, his intense blue eyes meeting Harry's briefly before he looked back down at Hermione. She did, indeed, seem to be breathing easier, and her color was no longer quite so alarming. Best of all, she was aware that he was looking at her, and she returned his gaze. "He's right," she said, still breathing a bit heavily. "It doesn't hurt as much."

Ron was afraid to hope, but he couldn't stop it. "How…?"

"It's what the Phlogiston Cure does," Harry said, still watching Hermione intently, monitoring her progress. "It 'burns' the poison out of you, the same way your body will give you a fever to burn out infection. Now…it's stopping, so that must mean…"

"The poison is gone," Hermione whispered.

She smiled tentatively, feeling the last of the Cure's effects slow down and stop. Though she was a bit dizzy from all of the hyperventilating she'd done, and she felt a bit weak, otherwise she was suddenly fine.

Because one never fully appreciated the ability to breathe until they hadn't been able to for awhile, Hermione closed her eyes and took one long, slow breath, exhaling it gradually. Ron watched her, concerned.

When she opened her eyes and smiled up at him, he smiled back.


	10. Epilogue

Considering that Madame Pomfrey had been horrified to learn what Hermione did, they were all quite surprised when she allowed Harry and Ron to stay for a few minutes to say goodnight.

They'd brought her to the hospital wing immediately after her recovery, and once Pomfrey had gotten past the shock and disbelief over what she'd done, she'd insisted that Hermione stay overnight for observation. It seemed that no one had ingested the Phlogiston Cure and lived for over a century, and the healer wanted to keep a very close eye on her.

"She probably just wants to make sure you don't start guzzling bottles of Flesh-Eating Slug Repellant, next," Ron said flippantly.

He glanced up and caught Madame Pomfrey looking at them meaningfully, indicating that their time was almost up. "Looks like she wants us out of here," he said.

Hermione held out a hand to Harry, and he obliged her by taking it. "I know you don't think you did anything special, Harry," she said. "And things **did** get rather rough there for a few minutes. I hate knowing that you would have blamed yourself if it had gone the other way, but…I just wanted you to know that it means a lot to me, what you did."

"What's that, managing to smash two bottles of the Excido Remedy?" he joked.

Hermione gave him her trademark, admonishing look. "No. I mean helping me, even though you didn't think it was a good idea. I wouldn't have gotten through it if it weren't for you. And," she added, smiling widely, "I'm **very** proud of you for mixing up the Excido Remedy correctly, all alone, after having only seen it done twice!"

Harry blushed at the praise, sort of embarrassed, but pleased nonetheless. "Perhaps there's hope for me yet," he said lightly. "Next thing you know, I'll be paying attention in class and turning in extra credit assignments."

"One can only hope," Hermione said, very seriously. Then the joke got to be too much for her, and they all three burst out laughing.

"Speaking of the unbelievable," Ron said, "I can't believe Snape came all the way up here to give you detention for using the Potions classroom without permission. I mean, honestly, you almost died!"

"Well, but she almost got detention for that, too," Harry reminded him, "when Madame Pomfrey discovered that she'd gotten herself poisoned again on purpose."

"I don't care," Hermione said resolutely. "I'd do it all again. And I can get through any amount of detentions, as long as I can remember that day in the forest."

She smiled up at Ron, and he grinned back at her, turning red.

Harry coughed discreetly. "Well, uh…I guess I'll head up to the dormitory. I'm glad you're all right, Hermione, really," he said, planting a kiss on the top of her head. "I'll see you in a few," he said to Ron, and then walked out.

They watched after Harry for a moment, and then Ron sat on the bed facing Hermione. He stared at her silently for a long time, finally shaking his head. "I still can't believe the risk you took to get that memory back," he said, half in wonder, half in disbelief.

Hermione smiled, reaching out to grasp his hand. It felt right, there, holding hers. "Well, it's a really good memory," she said, watching him.

She expected a blush, and he didn't disappoint her. But it was a mild one, not enough to hide his freckles, and he met her gaze directly. When he smiled back at her shyly, she felt her breath hitch…in a good way, this time.

"Yeah, it is," he said. And then he kissed her.

.

__

FIN


End file.
